ANTHONY VAN DYCK PORTRAIT OF A MAN The companion pieces "Portrait of a Man" and "Portrait of a Woman" (GE 71) date from 1618, and thus are the earliest dated paintings in van Dyck’s oeuvre. The portrait of the married couple, with the two sitters facing each other symmetrically, clearly reveals its origins in the diptych, whose wings were actually connected to each other. Portraits of this type were seen mainly as a record of marital status, and did not express emotional commitment. The conventional black clothing with white, stiff ruffs, a Netherlandish fashion that was sometimes influential abroad, helps to support the sense of emotional distance between them. Van Dyck enlivens the monotony of the clothing, a particular challenge for every painter, with thickly applied accents to ornament and folds, and gives the ruff almost physical substance in this way. The pictures do not seem to have been painted at the same time: the woman’s portrait is more secure in the use of painterly resources than its counterpart. Anthony van Dyck Portrait of a Man, 1618 Oil on panel height 106 cm, width 74 cm Dated top left: Ao 1618 Inscription top right: AET.57. Inv.-No. GE70 Provenance: 1733 identified by seal as entail On display in Gallery IX, Peter Paul Rubens, studio and contemporary artistic context Further works on display Portrait of Maria de Tassis, c. 1629/1630 St Jerome, c. 1615/1616 Portrait of an Old Man, c. 1618 Portrait of a Man, c. 1630/1632 Portrait of James Hamilton, third Marquess of Hamilton, 1640 Portrait of a Woman, c. 1618 Portrait of a Woman, 1618 Portrait of Antonio de Tassis, 1634 Portrait of a Genoese Nobleman, 1624 Venus Receiving the Arms of Aeneas from Vulcan, c. 1629/1632 Portrait of the Painter Frans Snyders Portrait of the Painter Caspar de Crayer Portrait of Engelbert Taie, baron of Wemmel Portrait of a man Portrait of a Man with a Medallion Portrait of the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia (1566–1633), Governor of the Spanish Netherlands Portrait of Johan VIII, Count of Nassau-Siegen, c. 1616/1617		New acquisitions >>