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VAN DYCK, Anthony, Joannes Breugel
Sir Anthony van Dyck was a Flemish painter who was one of the most important and prolific portraitists of the 17th century. He is also considered t… [Read biography »]
Signed Anthony van Dyck (1599 - 1641), Original Etching and Engraving, Joannes Breugel  |
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| Artist: | van Dyck, Anthony (1599 - 1641) |
|---|---|
| Title: | Joannes Breugel |
| Medium: | Original Etching and Engraving |
| Image Size: | 8 in x 5 3/4 in (20.32 cm x 14.61 cm) |
| Sheet Size: | 9 1/2 in x 6 1/8 in (24.13 cm x 15.57 cm) |
| Framed Size: | 27 1/2 in x 24 1/4 in (69.85 cm x 61.6 cm) |
| Signed: | Signed in the plate 'Ant. Van Dyck fecit aqua forti', in the lower left |
| Edition: | From the 1645 Hendricx edition featuring partial watermark of the Fool's Cap with Five-Pointed collar, dating the piece c. 1630-1645 |
| Condition: | This work is in good condition |
Price :Item# 1933 | $2,500 To speak directly with the Director, Alex Adelman, please call (510) 777-9970 / 1-800-805-7060. |
| Description: | |
A wonderfully detailed and charismatic portrait, this exquisite work illustrates the technical mastery and artistic vision of van Dyck. Breugel's stately, yet approachable expression reflects van Dyck's refined ability to comfort and relax his subjects, resulting in a realistic and acute portrait. The plate has been marked in the lower left of the plate "Ant. Van Dyck fecit aqua forti." Beneath the engraved name is the inscription: ANTVERPIÆ PICTOR FLORVM ET RVRALIVM PROSPECTVVM with initials, G.H. in the bottom center for Gilles Hendricx. The work also features a partial watermark of the Fool's Cap with Five-Pointed collar, dating the work to the mid 1630s-1640s. Also known as Jan Brueghel the Elder, Joannes was a Flemish painter known to excel in still lifes of several floral scenes and extremely detailed landscapes. Coming from a family of prolific artists, Joannes was the son of Pieter Brueghel the Elder and brother to Pieter Brueghel the Younger. The initials, 'G.H.' belong to publisher, Gillis Hendricx and was not included in Van Dyck's 'Iconographie' series. However, according to Frank Newbolt, this particular portrait "has had as great an influence on the art of etching as any example by Durer or Rembrandt. Its principal merit lies in the economy of line, and the perfection of the drawing. It is a superb demonstration of selective power" (19) . Catalogue Raisonné & COA: 1) Newbolt, Frank. Etchings of Van Dyck, Ballantyne Press: London. Listed and illustrated as cat. no. 17 on pg. 19. 2) Hind, Arthur. Van Dyck: His Original Etchings and His Iconography, Houghton Mifflin: New York, 1915. Listed on pg. 101 as W. 1; D. 1 and illustrated on pg. 13. 3) Churchill, W.A. Watermarks in Paper, Amsterdam, 1935. Detailed on pgs. 80-1 and illustrated on pgs. 34-6. 4) Ash, Nancy & Shelley Fletcher. Watermarks in Rembrandt's Prints, Washington, D.C., 1998. Watermark detailed and illustrated on pgs. 97-110. About the Framing: | |
Biography of Anthony van Dyck
Sir Anthony van Dyck was a Flemish painter who was one of the most important and prolific portraitists of the 17th century. He is also considered to be one of the most brilliant colorists in the history of art.
Van Dyck was born on March 22, 1599, in Antwerp, son of a rich silk merchant, and his precocious artistic talent was already obvious at age 11, when he was apprenticed to the Flemish historical painter Hendrik van Balen. He was admitted to the Antwerp guild of painters in 1618, before his 19th birthday. He spent the next two years as a member of the workshop of the Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens in Antwerp. Van Dyck's work during this period is in the lush, exuberant style of Rubens, and several paintings attributed to Rubens have since been ascribed to van Dyck.
From 1620 to 1627 van Dyck traveled in Italy, where he was in great demand as a portraitist and where he developed his maturing style. He toned down the Flemish robustness of his early work to concentrate on a more dignified, elegant manner. In his portraits of Italian aristocrats—men on prancing horses, ladies in black gowns—he created idealized figures with proud, erect stances, slender figures, and the famous expressive “van Dyck” hands. Influenced by the great Venetian painters Titian, Paolo Veronese, and Giovanni Bellini, he adopted colors of great richness and jewel-like purity. No other painter of the age surpassed van Dyck at portraying the shimmering whites of satin, the smooth blues of silk, or the rich crimsons of velvet. He was the quintessential painter of aristocracy, and was particularly successful in Genoa. There he showed himself capable of creating brilliantly accurate likenesses of his subjects, while he also developed a repertoire of portrait types that served him well in his later work at the court of Charles I of England.
Back in Antwerp from 1627 to 1632, van Dyck worked as a portraitist and a painter of church pictures. In 1632 he settled in London as chief court painter to King Charles I, who knighted him shortly after his arrival. Van Dyck painted most of the English aristocracy of the time, and his style became lighter and more luminous, with thinner paint and more sparkling highlights in gold and silver. At the same time, his portraits occasionally showed a certain hastiness or superficiality as he hurried to satisfy his flood of commissions. In 1635 van Dyck painted his masterpiece, Charles I in Hunting Dress (Louvre, Paris), a standing figure emphasizing the haughty grace of the monarch.
Van Dyck was one of the most influential 17th-century painters. He set a new style for Flemish art and founded the English school of painting; the portraitists Sir Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough of that school were his artistic heirs. He died in London on December 9, 1641.
