Van Dyck, Anthony
Van Dyck, Anthony (1599–1641). Portrait painter. In the opinion of Rubens, that master's finest pupil, the Antwerp-born Van Dyck had imbibed in Italy all the influences of Titian before he encountered the connoisseurship of Charles I in England. In 1632 he became ‘Principal Painter in Ordinary to their Majesties’ and was knighted in 1633, undertaking large compositions to project the mystique of the king's royalist convictions. In its range and quality this œuvre, together with many commissions depicting the Caroline aristocracy, was without precedent in England. In the course of one decade, Van Dyck mirrored the frailest of the European monarchies with such mastery that, in British portraiture, only Gainsborough and Lawrence may be considered rivals. Though he never intended to settle in England, and purchased property in Flanders, Van Dyck died in London in December 1641, helplessly witnessing the extinction of a world he had himself gone far to create. As a result of the sales of the royal collection following Charles I's execution, some of Van Dyck's work of the 1630s was lost to England.
David Denis Aldridge
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Van Dyck, Anthony