VAN DYCK, Anthony (Antwerp, 1599 – London, 1641)
The seventh child of Franchois van Dyck and Maria Cuypers, at the age of ten, Anton van Dyck entered, the workshop of the mannerist painter Hendrick van Balen, a collaborator of Jan Brueghel the Elder. Towards 1616–1618 he opened his own atelier with two apprentices, and in 1618 he was admitted as a master into the Guild of St. Luke. It is not clear exactly when or in what terms he joined Rubens’ workshop, but documents testify to his working for the Flemish master between 1618 and 1620.
At the end of 1620, already famous for being Rubens’s favourite disciple, Van Dyck went to London, where he painted at the service of King James I. The following year he returned to Antwerp. From there, following Rubens’ example, he left for Italy in October 1621. After spending some time in Genoa, he moved to Rome in 1622. In 1622 and 1623 he visited Venice, Mantua, Milan, Turin, Florence and Bologna, returning first to Rome and then to Genoa. In the spring of 1624, at the request of the viceroy of Sicily, Emmanuel-Philibert of Savoy, he travelled to Palermo. The plague which devastated the city and put an end to the king’s life that same year made him leave the island promptly. In 1625 he visited Marseille and spent another couple of years in Genoa, where he portrayed members of the wealthy families of the city.
Van Dyck returned to Antwerp at the end of 1627. A year later he received a gold chain worth 750 florins as payment for a portrait of Archduchess Isabel Clara Eugenia. Faced with the imminent return to Antwerp of Rubens—who was then in Madrid, on a diplomatic mission—Van Dyck weighed up his reception in England, by sending the painting Rinaldo and Armida (1629) to the young King Charles I. However, his departure to England was delayed by several years. In 1630 he was appointed court painter to Archduchess Isabel Clara Eugenia. There is also evidence from that same year that he owned a splendid collection of paintings, including nineteen works by Titian. In 1631 Van Dyck, by then a famous artist, painted two portraits of Maria de’ Medici and of her son Gaston, the Duke of Orleans, when they passed through Antwerp. During the winter of 1631-1632, he resided in The Hague, where he worked at the court of the Prince and Princess of Orange.
In 1632 Van Dyck travelled again to London, and soon after his arrival he was knighted and appointed chief court painter to Charles I. During the years 1632–1633 he painted the King and Queen on various occasions, as well as different members of the court of Stuart. In 1634, back in Antwerp, he was appointed honorary dean of the painters’ guild of St. Luke. Van Dyck returned to London in 1635 and made, among other works, a portrait of the King in three different positions to serve as a guide for the sculptor Bernini. Van Dyck remained in England for several years and in 1639 he married Mary Ruthven, one of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting. Nevertheless, stylistic and financial disagreements with Charles I turned his attention to the continent. In 1640, after the death of Rubens, he returned to Antwerp. His arrival coincided with the publication of the first edition of prints of his most famous portraits of princes and statesmen, philosophers and artists, made by Martin van Enden. Called to complete the paintings of the Torre de la Parada, in Madrid, left unfinished by Rubens, Van Dyck refused the commission as he considered it below his artistic category. Nonetheless, at the end of that year, he went to Paris with the hope of obtaining the commission of the decoration of the Grande Galerie of the Louvre, eventually given to Nicolas Poussin. Following this major setback, he returned to London in 1641, where he became ill. Van Dyck still travelled to Antwerp and Paris—where he was forced, due to his poor health, to turn down the commission to portray Cardinal Richelieu—before dying in London on 9 December 1641.
Juan Á. López-Manzanares
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