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Email to FriendAnthony van Dyck, Engraving, Sebastianus Vrancx (Sébastien Vrancx), c. 1645  |
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| Artist: | van Dyck, Anthony (1599 - 1641) |
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| Title: | Sebastianus Vrancx (Sébastien Vrancx), c. 1645 |
| Medium: | Original Engraving |
| Image Size: | 9 3/4 in x 6 3/8 in (24.8 cm x 16.2 cm) |
| Framed Size: | 24 1/2 in x 21 5/8 in (62.2 cm x 54.9 cm) |
| Signed: | Signed in the plate 'Ant. van Dyck pinxit', in the lower left; also signed "S.a Bolswert fculp" in the lower left. |
| Edition: | A Mauquoy-Hendrickx State V (of V) from the Giles Hendrickx edition, engraved by S.a Bolswert (Bolswert, 1586 - Antwerp, 1659) in collaboration with Anthony van Dyck (Antwerp, 1559 - London, 1641); printed on a fine paper with a partial unidentified watermark. |
| Condition: | This work is in very good condition. |
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Gallery Price
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Item# 3669
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Part of Van Dyck's "Iconographie" series, this portrait truly captures the essence of its subject. As a prominent painter, Vrancx appears as a man of sharp intellect with distinct, pointed features and a strong stance. |
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| Historical Description: | |
| A wonderfully detailed and charismatic portrait, this exquisite work illustrates
the technical mastery and artistic vision of Van Dyck. Sebastianus Vrancx's
stately yet approachable expression reflects Van Dyck''s refined ability to
comfort and relax his subjects, resulting in a realistic and acute portrait.
Vrancx was esteemed as one of the main painters of battle scenes at the time.
The majority of his works depict biblical scenes or scenes of war, such as the
sacking of towns, cavalry combats, genre paintings, and allegorical subjects.
Vrancx was also a writer of poetry, comedies, and tragic comedies for the Chamber
of Rhetoric De Violieren as well as the militia head in his district. With his
beady eyes, sharp nose, and pointed moustache, the multi-talented Vrancx appears
as a force to be reckoned with, as he points to the right, as if in the midst
of giving a command.
This portrait is a Mauquoy-Hendrickx State V (of V) from the Giles Hendrickx edition, engraved by S.a Bolswert (Bolswert 1586 - Antwerp, 1659) in collaboration with Anthony van Dyck (Antwerp, 1559 - London, 1641) as part of his Iconographie series of engraved portraits of famous people at the time. The plate has been marked in the lower left of the plate "Ant. Van Dyck pinxcit," and beneath that "S.a Bolswert fculp" and in the lower right of the plate "Cum privilegio." Beneath the engraved portrait is the inscription:SEBASTIANVS VRANCX | (PICTOR PRAELIORVM MINORVM) COHORTIS CIVIVM ANTVERP. DVCTOR. This piece is printed on a fine paper with a partial unidentified watermark.
1) Mauquoy-Hendrickx. L'Iconographie d'Antoine Van Dyck: Catalogue Raisonne
I. Bruxelles: Bibliotheque Royale Albert I, 1991. Listed as catalogue no. 25
on pg. 122.
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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.
