Family and early life Anthony van Dyck was born in Antwerp on 22 March 1599 as the seventh of 12 children of his parents. He was baptized the next day in the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk (now the
Antwerp Cathedral). His father was Frans van Dyck, a well-to-do silk merchant. His mother, Frans' second wife, was Maria Cupers (or Cuypers), the daughter of Dirk Cupers (or Cuypers) and Catharina Conincx. Anthony was baptised on 23 March 1599 (as Anthonius). He had later become a successful merchant in silk and small writing articles. He had bought the house where Anthony was born, a property known as Den Berendans (The Bear Dance), situated on Antwerp's Grote Markt (main square) in 1579. On Anthony's mother's family there were also a several artists who were Guild members. He was admitted to the Antwerp
Guild of Saint Luke as a free master on Saint Luke's day, 18 October 1617. The origins and exact nature of their relationship are unclear. It has been speculated that van Dyck was a pupil of Rubens from about 1613, as even his early work shows little trace of van Balen's style, but there is no clear evidence for this. Certainly, the dominance of Rubens in Antwerp, a relatively small and declining city, could explain why, despite periodic returns to the city, van Dyck spent most of his career abroad. Unlike van Dyck, Rubens worked for most of the courts of Europe, but avoided exclusive attachment to any of them.
Italy In 1620, at the instigation of
George Villiers, Marquess of Buckingham, van Dyck went to England for the first time where he worked for King
James I of England, receiving £100. Returned to Flanders after about four months, van Dyke then left in late 1621 for Italy, where he remained for six years. There he studied the Italian masters while starting a successful career as a portraitist. He was already presenting himself as a figure of consequence, annoying the rather bohemian colony of Northern artists in
Rome, as
Giovan Pietro Bellori recounts, appearing with "the pomp of
Zeuxis ... his behaviour was that of a nobleman rather than an ordinary person, and he shone in rich garments. Since he was accustomed in the circle of Rubens to noblemen, and being naturally of elevated mind, and anxious to make himself distinguished, he therefore wore, as well as silks, a hat with feathers and brooches, gold chains across his chest, and was accompanied by servants." (1627–28) While mostly based in
Genoa, he also travelled extensively to other cities, and stayed for some time in
Palermo, in
Sicily, where he was quarantined during the 1624 plague, one of the worst in the island's history. There he produced an important series of paintings of the city's plague saint
Saint Rosalia. His depictions of a young woman with flowing blonde hair wearing a Franciscan cowl and reaching down toward the imperilled city of Palermo, became the standard iconography of the saint from then onward and was extremely influential for Italian Baroque painters, from
Luca Giordano to
Pietro Novelli. Versions include those in
Madrid,
Houston,
London,
New York and
Palermo, as well as
Saint Rosalia Interceding for the City of Palermo in Puerto Rico, and
Coronation of Saint Rosalia in Vienna. Van Dyck's series of St Rosalia paintings have been studied by
Gauvin Alexander Bailey and
Xavier F. Salomon, both of whom curated or co-curated exhibitions devoted to the theme of Italian art and the plague. In 2020, the
New York Times published an article about the
Metropolitan Museum of Art's painting of Saint Rosalia by Van Dyck in the context of the
COVID-19 virus. For the Genoese aristocracy, at that time enjoying a final flush of prosperity, van Dyke developed a full-length portrait style, drawing on
Veronese and Titian as well as Rubens' style from the latter's own period in Genoa, where extremely tall but graceful figures look down on the viewer with great hauteur. In 1627, van Dyke went back to Antwerp where he remained for five years, painting portraits that were more affable in tone while still making is Flemish patrons look as stylish as possible. A life-size group portrait of twenty-four City Councillors of
Brussels which he painted for the council-chamber was destroyed in 1695. Evidently van Dyke was very charming to his patrons, and, like Rubens, well able to mix in aristocratic and court circles, a fact that added to his skill in obtaining commissions. By 1630, he was described as the court painter of the Habsburg Governor of Flanders, the Archduchess Isabella. In this period he also produced many religious works, including large
altarpieces, and began his printmaking. '', , exemplifies the more intimate, but still elegant style he developed in England
London and death King Charles I was the most passionate collector of art among the
Stuart kings and saw painting as a way of promoting his elevated view of the monarchy. In 1628, Charles bought the fabulous collection that the
Duke of Mantua was forced to sell, and from his accession to the throne in 1625 made efforts to bring leading foreign painters to England. In 1626, he was able to persuade
Orazio Gentileschi to settle in England, later to be joined by Orazio's daughter
Artemisia and some of his sons. Charles made a special point of targeting Rubens, who eventually came in 1630 on a diplomatic mission, which included painting, and who later sent Charles further paintings from Antwerp. Rubens was very well-treated during his nine-month visit, during which he was
knighted. Charles's court portraitist,
Daniel Mytens, was a somewhat pedestrian Dutchman. Moreover, Charles was very short, less than tall, and presented challenges to any portrait artist. Van Dyck remained in touch with the English court and helped King Charles's agents in their search for pictures. He sent some of his own works, including a self-portrait (1623) with
Endymion Porter, one of Charles's agents, his
Rinaldo and Armida (1629), and a religious picture for Queen
Henrietta Maria. He had also painted Charles's sister, Queen
Elizabeth of Bohemia, at
The Hague in 1632. In April of that year, van Dyck returned to London and was immediately taken under the wing of the court, being knighted in July and at the same time being granted a pension of £200 a year, the grant describing him as
principalle Paynter in ordinary to their majesties. In addition, van Dyke was well paid for his paintings, or at least in theory, as King Charles did not actually hand over the pension for five years and reduced the price of many paintings. A house was provided on the
River Thames at
Blackfriars, then just outside the
City of London, thus avoiding for van Dyke any difficulty with the monopoly of the
Worshipful Company of Painter-Stainers. A suite of rooms in
Eltham Palace, no longer used by the royal family, was also put at his disposal as a country retreat. These residences were managed by his mistress
Margaret Lemon. His Blackfriars studio was frequently visited by the King and Queen (later a special causeway was built to ease their access), who hardly ever sat for another painter as long as van Dyck lived. He painted many of the court, and also himself and his mistress, Margaret Lemon. Although his portraits have created the classic idea of "
Cavalier" style and dress, in fact a majority of his most important patrons in the nobility, such as
Lord Wharton and the Earls of
Bedford,
Northumberland and
Pembroke, were to take the
Parliamentarian side in the
English Civil War that broke out soon after the painter's death. The King
in Council by
letters patent granted van Dyck
denizenship in 1638. On 27 February 1640 he married Mary Ruthven, with whom he had one daughter. Mary was the daughter of
Patrick Ruthven, who, although the title was forfeited, styled himself
Lord Ruthven. She was a
lady-in-waiting to the Queen in 1639–40; this may have been instigated by the King in an attempt to keep van Dyke in England. A letter dated 13 August 1641, from
Lady Roxburghe in England to a correspondent in The Hague, reported that van Dyck was recuperating from a long illness. In November, van Dyck's condition worsened, and he returned to England from Paris, where he had gone to paint
Cardinal Richelieu. ==Portraits and other works==