Van Dyck or Vandyke, Sir Anthony 1599-1641
Flemish painter

Born in Antwerp, he studied painting under Hendrick van Balen (1575-1632) and Rubens. In 1618 he was admitted a master of the guild of St Luke at Antwerp and in 1620 was commissioned to paint the Lady Arundel, wife of Thomas Howard, 2nd Earl of Arundel. Records show that on this visit to England (1620-21) he also executed a full-length portrait of James VI and I at Windsor. He was in Italy from 1621. At Genoa he painted a number of portraits and some religious subjects for the pope, but in this field he did not rival his Italian contemporaries. By 1627 he was back in Antwerp. His fine draughtsmanship is apparent in the heads he etched for his Iconographia (1641). At The Hague he painted the Prince of Orange (later William III) and his family. In 1632 he returned to London, and was knighted by Charles I, who made him a painter-in-ordinary. Back in Holland on leave (1634-35), he painted Ferdinand of Austria and The Deposition. His flair for, and psychological accuracy in, rendering the character of his sitters, always with a hint of flattery and in the most favourable settings, greatly influenced the British school of portraiture in the next century and imparted to posterity a thoroughly romantic glimpse of the Stuart monarchy. Among the best of these portraits are the large group of Charles I, Queen Henrietta Maria and the two royal children, the equestrian portrait of the king, the three aspects of the king (1637) to serve as a model for Gian Lorenzo Bernini's sculpture (all at Windsor) and the magnificent Le Roi � la chasse. His scheme for decorating the banqueting hall in Whitehall with scenes from the history of the Order of the Garter was turned down and he failed to obtain the commission for the decoration of the gallery of the Louvre, which went to Nicolas Poussin. He is regarded as one of the great masters of portraiture of the 17th century.