English Period

This double portrait represents a key moment in Van Dyck’s English career. The commission had initially been given to the Dutchman Daniel Mytens, the leading court artist before Van Dyck’s arrival in England, but his painting must not have satisfied his patron, for it was eventually replaced by Van Dyck’s new version. Van Dyck deviates remarkably little from Mytens’s model while improving every aspect of it: the liveliness of the painting, the interaction — at once tender and formal — between the royal pair and between the queen and the viewer, the added interest of the background, and the magnificent harmony of colors. In the year of this triumph, Van Dyck was knighted and appointed "principalle Paynter" of the king while Mytens left England and returned to his native Holland.

In preparing his portrait of Henrietta Maria, Van Dyck drew this study of her costume. The absence of any close study of the queen’s facial features suggests the drawing may have been made from a hired model wearing a garment lent to the studio. The use of colored chalks to record certain details of the queen’s dress is almost unique in Van Dyck’s drawn oeuvre. Entirely focused on the fall of fabric and the brilliant highlights in the riding clothes, the drawing gives only the most summary indication of the queen’s surroundings or her attendant.

This is one of the very few surviving oil sketches by Van Dyck for which the related finished portrait still survives. Each of the heads in the complete portrait — representing the five eldest children of King Charles I — must have been based on a similar sketch done from life, whereas the overall composition and individual poses would have been prepared with chalk on paper or in oil on panel. The number of heads in the painting, as well as the challenge of having young children sit still, probably led Van Dyck to make the head studies separately. With admirable economy, he made sure that the sketch contained sufficient information regarding the children’s physiognomy, in the process creating a masterpiece of rapid observation.

A prominent courtier and friend of Van Dyck’s, Endymion Porter is depicted with his youngest son, Philip, who was about five when this masterful study was made. The drawing corresponds to the left part of a family portrait of Porter and his wife and was probably made from life to capture the interaction between the figures and the complexities of their costume. The fingers of Porter’s hand resting on the pommel of a sword are drawn twice at right. A second drawing of young Philip, which may have preceded the present sheet, is displayed here.

Displayed here on its side, this is Van Dyck’s detailed study for the costume and hands holding gloves of George Porter, the eldest son of the courtier Endymion Porter and the second figure from the right in Van Dyck’s portrait of the Porter family. The drawing does not include George’s head, which Van Dyck must have studied separately, either in chalk or (more likely) in an oil sketch. The recto of this sheet contains two studies of George’s youngest brother for the same composition.

A leading aristocrat and art patron in Caroline England, Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, was portrayed several times by Van Dyck, as well as by Peter Paul Rubens. Representing his formidable presence with exceptional immediacy, this drawing does not correspond directly to any of Van Dyck’s portraits of the "Collector Earl" but was undoubtedly made from life with a larger composition in mind. The drawing may be a rejected idea for a lost painting that showed a seated Arundel with his wife, Aletheia Talbot, and their family.

A prominent nobleman under Charles I, James Stuart is seen in this drawing and the related painting wearing the attire and insignia of the Order of the Garter, with which he had been invested in 1633. Although the costume and face are specific enough to suggest that the drawing was made with Stuart himself sitting, it mainly served as a study of his pose and costume. For the head, Van Dyck would probably have made a more detailed oil sketch, possibly on the canvas intended for the finished painting.

This fairly detailed head study stands apart from most of Van Dyck’s English-period portrait drawings, which are generally concerned only with pose and costume. The long-haired youth wearing a luxurious lace collar may be Bernard Stuart, brother of James, Duke of Lennox and Richmond, who is shown in the portrait study here. Van Dyck portrayed Bernard together with another brother, John, in a famous double portrait from around 1638 (The National Gallery, London), and the young nobleman is also possibly the subject of the drawing here.

This head study, until recently attributed to Peter Lely, is one of the more detailed portrait drawings of Van Dyck’s English period. The lady’s pointed nose and chin and curly hair are precisely recorded, while her dress is indicated only with the faintest outlines. Despite its small size, the drawing makes the somewhat forbidding appearance of the woman remarkably present.

James Stanley, Lord Strange, Earl of Derby, was descended from an ancient land-owning family in the north of England that also ruled the Isle of Man. He married Charlotte de La Trémoille, who was related to some of the most prominent aristocratic defenders of Protestantism in continental Europe. Both played a role in the royalist cause following the outbreak of the civil war, and the earl was eventually beheaded. Here, Lord and Lady Strange form an inverted triangle with one of their daughters, an arrangement of classical simplicity that coexists with an allusive iconographic program. The island in the background may represent the Isle of Man and the color of the young girl’s dress her descent from the House of Orange.

Pomponne II de Bellièvre, Lord of Grignon, came from a prominent family of French statesmen and twice served as French ambassador to the English court. Van Dyck most likely painted Bellièvre during the latter’s first posting to London, although the ambassador could also have sat for him during the painter’s sojourn in Paris shortly before his death. Van Dyck’s likeness is a study in muted elegance, with Bellièvre’s long brown hair lapping over his floppy collar while a sash of crimson silk accents his otherwise black and white costume. Bellièvre was a noted collector of works by Nicolas Poussin and Philippe de Champaigne, and his austere and learned taste may have informed his instructions to Van Dyck for the present portrait.

This outstanding portrait offers valuable evidence of Van Dyck’s method during his English period. The treatment of the face is highly finished and refined, but the woman’s bust and hand await finishing glazes, and there are extensive areas of unpainted canvas that suggest a shawl wrapped around her body. As with many other works from his London studio, Van Dyck must have painted his sitter’s face from life, resulting in a halo still visible around her head. A workshop assistant would probably have completed the painting of the background and draperies before Van Dyck applied a few final touches. If the occasional identification of the sitter as Rachel, Countess of Southampton, is correct, then work on the portrait may have been interrupted by the sitter’s death in childbirth.

There is almost no surviving documentation for the life of Van Dyck’s mistress, Margaret Lemon, although some sources describe her as a famous courtesan. In this portrait, long considered lost, Lemon appears in three-quarter profile, delicately touching the fabric at her shoulder. Only recently has this version been recognized as Van Dyck’s original, the source of many imitations. At some point, the canvas was cut down, truncating the gesture of Lemon’s left hand. This area may have been unfinished at Van Dyck’s death.

Mary Ruthven came from an aristocratic, if impoverished, family of Scottish Catholics and served as a maid of honor to Queen Henrietta Maria. Van Dyck’s marriage to her in early 1640 marked his social ascent, but the painter died less than two years later, just eight days after the birth of his daughter Justina. Van Dyck’s portrait of his new bride is a sensuously painted autograph work. A cluster of oak leaves bound in Lady van Dyck’s hair may symbolize constancy, while her elegantly splayed fingers call attention to the proscribed Catholic faith that she shared with her husband, symbolized in the crucifix she displays.