Anthony van Dyck

Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641) became the most influential portrait painter of the seventeenth century, second only to his teacher Rubens among Flemish Baroque masters. Born in Antwerp to a wealthy silk merchant, he painted from childhood and was apprenticed to Hendrick van Balen at age ten. By eighteen, he was accepted as a master in the Guild of St. Luke. Rubens called him "the best of my pupils."

Van Dyck spent 1621–1627 in Italy, mostly in Genoa, studying Titian and the Venetian masters while painting aristocratic portraits. A sketchbook in the British Museum records his obsession with Titian's color and handling. Returning to Antwerp, he became court painter to Archduchess Isabella in 1630. But his greatest success came in England. In 1632, Charles I knighted him and made him the official royal portraitist. The king gave him a house on the Thames near Blackfriars and rooms at Eltham Palace.

Van Dyck's portraits of Charles I, his queens, and the English aristocracy set the template for formal portraiture for over 150 years. His elegant, elongated figures and silvery palette influenced generations of English painters, from Gainsborough to Reynolds. He also painted religious and mythological subjects and pioneered new techniques in etching and watercolor. Van Dyck died in London in 1641 at forty-two and was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral. His work hangs at the National Gallery in London, the Hermitage, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Louvre.