(1631) (Wallace Collection) and of Mary Louisa of Tassis (Prince Liechtenstein, Vienna) are not only the finest examples of the master's talent, but deserve to rank among the most beautiful portraits ever painted. The “Snyders” at Castle Howard is regarded by Waagen as not inferior to the most celebrated Raphaels, Titians or Holbeins; and of almost equal excellence are the “Wife of Colin de Nole” in the Munich gallery, the “Lady and her Daughter” at the Louvre, and the “Lady in Black” at Cassel.
Rapidly rising to honour and wealth, Van Dyck shared with Rubens the official title of court painter, and his numerous portraits of the infanta in her monastic garb (Paris, Vienna, Turin, Parma, &c.) bear testimony to the great favour in which he stood with her. When Marie de Medicis, after her flight from France, took up her residence in Brussels (1631), she honoured Van Dyck, as well as Rubens, with repeated visits, and several times called upon him to paint her likeness, as well as those Of Gaston of Orleans and his wife Margaret of Lorraine, and several of the personages of their court. From Gerbier's letters we learn that Van Dyck at this time was contemplating another journey to England, and was very anxious to be commissioned by the infanta and the queen of France to take over their portraits as presents for the king and royal family. He soon travelled to the Hague to paint the prince and princess of Orange and their son. Quite at the beginning of 1632 Constantine Huygens, who was then living at the Hague, inscribes in his diary, “Pingor a Van Dyckio.” When, towards the end of March, Van Dyck sailed for England, he took all these portraits with him, as we learn from an account of the 8th of August 1632 (Carpenter's Pictorial Notices). Dutch authors speak of a visit paid by Van Dyck to Frans Hals at Haarlem, and of a portrait of the latter through which the Antwerp master was at once recognized by his Dutch colleague. An engraving of a portrait of Hals after Van Dyck seems to confirm the story.
In undertaking this new journey to London, Van Dyck was assured of success, for Gerbier's letters show that the king had personally desired his presence. As early as March 1629 Endymion Porter, one of the gentlemen of the king's bed-chamber, had been commissioned to order a picture from Van Dyck, “Rinaldo and Armida.” The canvas, now belonging to the duke of Newcastle, may be looked upon as one of the master's finest creations. Exceptional favours were bestowed upon Van Dyck almost from the day of his arrival in London. Besides the title of painter in ordinary, and the grant of an annual pension of £200, he received the honour of knighthood after a residence of less than three months at court (5th July 1632). He rapidly achieved popularity among the higher classes, and, as Walpole says, his works are so frequent in England that to most Englishmen it is difficult to avoid thinking of him as their countryman.
His refined nature is strikingly illustrated in his admirable interpretation of English beauty and style. And, if Van Dyck be compared to Mytens and Cornelius Janssen, the most distinguished painters employed by the English court immediately before him, few artists, whether in England or elsewhere, have more richly endowed their models with distinction of feature and elegance in bearing. To him may be applied what Opie says of Titian, “that he combines resemblance with dignity, costume with taste, and art with simplicity.” We are particularly struck with the thorough and immediate identification of his talent with local tastes and exigencies. Charles I. and Henrietta Maria, although pictured by several other painters, are known to posterity almost exclusively through Van Dyck, not from a greater closeness of resemblance to the original, but from a particular power of expression and bearing which, once seen, it is impossible to forget. The artist was lodged at the expense of the crown, with a summer residence at Eltham Palace, and was frequently honoured with the visits of the king at his studio at Blackfriars. Portraits now followed each other with a rapidity scarcely credible to those unacquainted with the artist's method. In fact, his mode of living and his love of pleasure sufficiently explain his great need of money. During the first year of his presence in England he painted the king and queen a dozen times. The first of these noble portraits is the admirable full-length of Charles I., with the queen and their two eldest children, at Windsor Castle. The style he adopted in England is generally termed his third manner; we might better say his fourth, as he already had a very particular style before he set out on his Italian journey. De Piles gives us some account of Van Dyck's methods at this period of his career. He began with a small sketch on grey paper with black and white chalks, or a monochrome in oils. This study was passed on to assistants in order to be copied on the required scale. When the clothes were sufficiently advanced by the pupils from those sent by the model, as well as the background and accessories, the master was enabled in a few sittings of an hour each to complete the work. Van Dyck excelled in painting the hands; he is said to have kept special models for this part of his work. It need hardly be said that a system of this kind, although employed by Rubens for his larger creations, was exceedingly ill adapted to portrait painting. In Van Dyck's later productions we too often detect marks of haste, as if the brush were becoming a mere implement of trade.
Nearly the whole of 1634 and 1635 were spent by Van Dyck in the Netherlands, whence his brother, an Antwerp priest, had been called over by the queen to act as her chaplain. The archduchess died on 1st December 1633, and Van Dyck naturally wished to get his official title renewed by her successor, Ferdinand of Austria, brother of Philip IV. That Van Dyck's residence in Antwerp was only to be temporary is shown by the power given to his sister Susan for the administration of his affairs in Belgium (14th April 1634). On the arrival of the new governor Van Dyck was immediately called upon to paint his likeness, a picture now in the Madrid gallery, where the same personage is also represented by Rubens and Velazquez. Several other portraits of Ferdinand, either in his cardinal's robes or in military dress, by Van Dyck, occur elsewhere. One on horseback was exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery, London, in 1887, as the duke of Alva (lent by Mr S. Kynaston Mainwaring). Van Dyck was greatly in demand at this time, and his prices were correspondingly high, as the Antwerp municipality found when they asked for a portrait of the late infanta to decorate one of the triumphal arches for the reception of the new governor. The most important of Van Dyck's works, at any rate as a portrait painter, belong to this period. The picture representing in life-size the members of the Brussels corporation, which was destroyed by fire during. the siege of 1695, is spoken of with intense admiration by several writers. Bullart, for instance, is very enthusiastic about its fine colour and life-like qualities. Among the religious paintings of undisputed excellence belonging to the same period are the “Adoration of the Shepherds” in the church at Termonde, and the “Deposition,” where the body of Christ rests upon the lap of the Virgin, in the Antwerp museum. Among the portraits are the admirable full-length of Scaglia, the king's frequent agent in the Netherlands (at Dorchester House; a replica in the museum at Antwerp), the equestrian portrait of Albert of Arenberg (Arenberg Palace at Brussels), and a portrait of the same nobleman on foot, in the black velvet Spanish dress with golden chamberlain's key (long said to be Rubens) at Althorp, the full-length of Helena Fourment, Rubens's second wife (at St Petersburg), the beautiful duchess of Havre, Mary Clara de Croy, signed and dated 1634 (Mr Ayscough Fawkes), and other members of the same family (at Munich), Thomas of Savoy (at Berlin), an admirable half-length of a lady in black (in the Vienna gallery), and above all the grandiose picture in which John of Nassau is represented at full-length, with his wife and children (at Panshanger). Several portraits of Brussels and Antwerp magistrates must also be mentioned, the most important being John Van Merstraeten, a Brussels lawyer (at Cassel).
After being chosen honorary president of the Antwerp gild of St Luke, Van Dyck returned to London before the end of 1635. In spite of the vast number of his later portraits, some of them deserve to be ranked among the most celebrated of his
