Sir Anthony van Dyck Antwerp 1599 - 1641 London

The reappearance of this work from a private collection, nearly twenty-five years after it was last seen, has brought an impressive painting and the only autograph version of a successful subject to its rightful place in Van Dyck’s Italian corpus (1621-27). Van Dyck’s technical mastery is apparent throughout, particularly in the Virgin’s hand, her cloak, and her headscarf as well as the white drapery around Jesus.  There are also pentimenti, including characteristic under-painted compositional outlines.  The soft brown scarf and the russet lining of the Virgin’s ultramarine cloak are, respectively, a subtle and a striking complement to the customary primary colors she wears.  Above all, the painting has the blend of playfulness and dignity, the integrity, the presence, and the authority that mark Van Dyck’s maturity.  It compares favorably with such contemporary subjects as the Turin Holy Family, the Genoa Tribute Money and the Birmingham Man of Sorrows.¹

In a period when Van Dyck’s talents were channeled predominantly into portraiture, this painting joins the roughly two dozen surviving works that engaged the artist’s passion and gifts in the interpretation of Christian themes. Van Dyck grew up in Antwerp when Rubens utterly dominated the artistic scene.  As a precocious teenager, Van Dyck both learned from and eventually participated in the making of Rubens’ oeuvre.  When he arrived in Italy at 22, he was free to develop his own artistic voice. That included a shift from the very large, complex dramas (in which Rubens excelled) to more focused scenes of inter-personal action that were his own forte, and in which he was inspired by the supreme master, Titian.  Like Titian’s own, Van Dyck’s genius as a painter of portraits and history pictures alike was grounded in his careful observation and sensitive representation of people—their gestures, emotions, and interactions.

Even before his departure for Italy, Van Dyck emulated Titian’s technique in some youthful portraits and religious paintings.  Once there, Van Dyck feasted on the works of the master and of his Venetian contemporaries, seen in situ in Venice and in Roman and Genoese collections.  Van Dyck filled the pocket sketchbook he carried, now in the British Museum, with motifs and compositions from their paintings, and with his own variations, which he called pensieri.²  In this period, when he was flowering, Van Dyck fully absorbed the lessons from his models.  Occasionally he quoted directly from the sketchbook for a pose, a gesture, or a grouping.  In general, their spirit infuses his oeuvre.  Among the qualities in this handsome painting that look back to Titian are the distracted—even melancholy—mood of the Virgin.  It recalls (among several) Titian’s  Virgin in the Madonna of the Pesaro Family in the Church of the Frari in Venice; so do the divergent directions in which the Virgin and Child face.  Here, the backward leaning pose of the Child, and his tender, playful gesture touching Joseph’s face unify compositionally the three members of the Holy Family.  There is theological content there, too: with Jesus’ feet firmly planted on the lap of the woman who gave him birth, he reaches up to embrace the man who generously agreed to be his adopted father and to nurture him through life.  Joseph’s pointing gesture, which closes the triangle among the three, might have particular significance.  (The Joseph in the Turin Holy Family—same model painted at the same angle—also points.)  The angel at the right, whose presence carrying a basket of roses may mean this is a Rest on the Flight into Egypt, is of a type found in St. Rosalie (Houston, Menil Collection) and mythologies including Vertumnus and Pomona (Genoa, Palazzo Bianco).³

This was apparently Van Dyck’s most popular Italian-period religious subject.   Glück published a copy.  Its slightly larger dimensions (148 x 118 cm.) and expanded composition suggest that the present picture was cut down at the top and the right side.⁴ There are also two copies with a variation (the young St. John below right instead of the angel at Mary’s side)—one in Genoa⁵, the other published by Glück.⁶  Glück subsequently published an oil sketch, which he believed was the study for the Virgin.⁷

Susan J. Barnes

1  S.J. Barnes, N. De Poorter, O. Millar and H. Vey, Van Dyck. A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings, London 2004, nos. II. 6, II. 8, II. 10.
2  G.  Adriana, Anton Van Dyck. Italianisches Skizzenbuch, Vienna 1940, fol. 9, for example.
3  S.J. Barnes, N. De Poorter, O. Millar and H. Vey, op. cit., nos. II. 16, II. 22.
4  G. Glück, Van Dyck, Klassiker der Kunst, Stuttgart 1931, p. 153.   The painting was for a time on deposit in the Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Bonn (see F. Goldkuhle, I. Krueger and H.M. Schmidt, Gemälde bis 1900, Cologne 1982, pp. 173-174.   It is now in the Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin). Dr. Krueger kindly furnished photos and information about  the picture.
5  S.J. Barnes, N. De Poorter, O. Millar and H. Vey, op. cit., p. 234, no. II.A2.
6  G. Glück, op. cit., p. 152 (present whereabouts unknown).
7  G. Glück, “Notes on Van Dyck’s Stay in Italy,” Burlington Magazine 74 (1939), pp. 207-208.   The whereabouts of this painting are also unknown.