Attributed to Sir Anthony van Dyck and Studio Antwerp 1599 - 1641 London

Pierre Crozat collection, Paris (1655-1740), and by inheritance to
His nephew, Louis-Antoine Crozat, Baron de Thiers (died 1770);
Bought with the entire Crozat collection by Catherine II of Russia in 1772;
At Tsarskoe-Selo Palace, near St Petersburg;
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg (no. 638 in the later catalogues);
Count Aleksandr Stroganov collection (1733-1811), Leningrad;
Stroganov sale, Berlin, Lepke, 12-13 May 1931, lot 81, ill;
With Frank T. Sabin, London, 1931-52;
London, Christie's, 25 November 1960, lot 69, ill;
With Frost & Reed, London;
With Duveen, New York, by whom sold to the present collector.

J.B de la Curne de Sainte-Palaye, Catalogue des Tableaux du Cabinet de M. Crozat, Baron de Thiers, Paris 1755, pp. 43-44;
La Galerie Imperiale..., St Petersburg 1838, p. 434, no. 13;
J. Guiffrey, Antoine van Dyck: sa Vie et son Oeuvre, Paris 1882, p. 270, no. 677b;
M. Rooses, Fifty Masterpieces of Anthony van Dyck in Photogravure Selected from the PIctures Exhibited at Antwerp in 1899, tr. Fanny Knowles, London 1900, p. 25;
L. Cust, Anthony van Dyck: An Historical Study of his Life and Works, London 1900, p. 257, under no. 67;
A. Somof, Ermitage Imperial. Catalogue de la Galerie des Tableaux, vol. 2, St Petersburg 1901, p. 87, no. 638;
E. Schaeffer, Van Dyck: des Meisters Gemalde, Klassiker der Kunst, Stuttagart and Leipzig 1909, vol. 13, p. 505, no. 226; G. Gluck, Van Dyck, des Meisters Gemalde, Klassiker der Kunst, Stuttgart/ New York/ London 1931, no. 13, 2nd rev. ed., p. 551, under no. 248;
E. Dacier, Gabriel de Saint-Aubin, vol. 2, Paris/ Brussels 1931, pp. 190-1, no. 1030, pl. XXXVIII;
Sping Exhibition, Frank T. Sabin, London 1952, no. 28, colour ill.
H. Vey, N. de Poortere et. al., Van Dyck.  A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings, Singapore 2003, no. III.A17, p. 407 (as Van Dyck, on the basis of an old black and white photographs).

Jan van Malderen (1563-1633) studied philosophy in Douai and theology in Leuven, and became a professor of theology in Leuven in 1596.  In 1611 he was appointed the Bishop of Antwerp.  He remained in this position until his death, and published extensively while he held the post.  In 1625 and in 1633 he is recorded as having donated stained-glass windows to several churches in Antwerp.

On the basis of old photographs, Dr. Horst Vey included the present work in the new catalogue raisonné on Van Dyck, under the section of accepted works from the Second Antwerp period, and listed it as "present whereabouts unknown" (see Literature below).  Subsequent to re-examining color transparencies of the present work, Dr. Vey, in written correspondence, has noted that the present work is in fact the prime studio repetition of a lost prime version by Van Dyck.  Dr. Vey notes that the head is particularly impressive and that the sketchy treatment of the garb the Bishop wears is slightly less sophisticated in handling.  This stylistic discrepancy leads Vey to conclude that, "It stands to reason that such a picture was painted under the immediate artistic control of van Dyck, and it is reasonable to assume that he would improve the head and perhaps other important parts of the picture if it was deemed necessary."  Ludwig Burchard examined the present painting in 1957 and 1959 and noted that despite, what he termed the "delicacy of execution", this work could not be considered the original version.   The present work is, however, both Vey and Burchard agree far superior to the repetition in the Koninklijk Museum, Antwerp, which was also once considered to be by Van Dyck.  It is interesting to note the evidence of many pentimento in this composition.

Wenceslaus Hollar etched this portrait, reversed and slightly cropped in proportion, in Antwerp, in 1645.

This painting belonged to the celebrated collector Pierre Crozat. The majority of his paintings collection passed to his nephew, Louis-Antoine, Baron de Thiers, a bibliophile who is not otherwise known to have bought paintings. The painting then passed directly to another prestigious collection, that of Catherine the Great, where it hung in the Palaca of Tsarskoe-Selo, near St. Petersburg.