Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 58.djvu/115

 any other commissions. The interesting sketch-book used by Van Dyck in Italy (in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire; some copies in the British Museum) contains many studies after Titian and others, noted as having been made in Genoa, Rome, &c. One of the most interesting sketches in the volume is that of the nonagenarian and blind painter, Sofonisba Anguisciola, whom Van Dyck saw at Palermo, and who gave him most valuable advice upon the art of painting. Returning to Genoa, he resumed his painting there, and produced several mythological and sacred pictures, besides portraits. Nicholas Lanier [q. v.] was then travelling in Italy in search of pictures for Charles I's collection. Van Dyck now met Lanier and painted his portrait. In one of the diaries of Charles Beale, husband of Mary Beale [q. v.] the painter, there is an interesting note that Sir Peter Lely had been told by Lanier himself that he had sat for this portrait seven entire days, Van Dyck working both morning and afternoon, and that it was this portrait of Lanier which first caused Charles I to send for Van Dyck into England. During a visit to Turin Van Dyck painted some fine portraits of the house of Savoy. There also he met again his old friend the Countess of Arundel, who renewed her endeavours to persuade Van Dyck to go into England.

In December 1625 Van Dyck was still absent from his home, but appears to have started on his journey back. His movements, however, during the next two years are uncertain. He seems to have returned by Aix, where he visited and painted the famous writer and savant Peiresc, and he probably also visited Paris, a well-known portrait of François Langlois dit Ciartres, the art publisher, playing the bagpipes (in the possession of Mr. Garnett), being probably due to this visit. The exact date of his return to Antwerp seems uncertain. There is no certain proof of his being there before March 1628, when he made his will, but it seems likely that he may have returned as early as January 1626.

With Van Dyck's return to Antwerp commences the period of his career when he reached his highest point in the world of art. For the next five or six years he resided in Antwerp, the rival of Rubens in the painting of history, unapproachable in portraiture, attached as court painter to the regents, Albert and Isabella of Austria, while his aristocratic appearance and refined habits made him, as it were, the preux chevalier of painting. His father had died on 1 Dec. 1622, during his absence in Italy, and one of Van Dyck's first duties on his return was to paint a large picture of ‘Christ on the Cross between St. Catherine of Siena and St. Dominick’ as an epitaph for the tomb of his father in the church of the Dominicans at Antwerp (1629). In this picture (now in the Antwerp Museum) Van Dyck shows a preference for sober blacks and greys, and for expressing sentiment by expression rather than by action, which is in strong contrast to the vehemence and brilliant colouring of Rubens's later works. Many were the paintings, chiefly sacred, which Van Dyck painted during this period, and some of them are of the highest merit. The influence of Titian is frequently obvious, as in the ‘Samson and Delilah’ and ‘Venus at the Forge of Vulcan’ at Vienna. Sometimes also his works reveal his study of the Bolognese school. He repeated the same subject many times with but slight variations, such as ‘Christ on the Cross,’ or the ‘Pietà,’ or ‘Lamentation over the Body of Christ,’ a subject in which he particularly excelled. The finest examples are now to be seen in the galleries at Antwerp, Vienna, Munich, and elsewhere, while some isolated examples remain in their original places, such as the ‘St. Augustine’ at Antwerp, the ‘Raising of the Cross’ at Courtrai, and the ‘Crucifixion’ at Termonde. In some cases Van Dyck seems to have deliberately used a sketch or design by Rubens, as in the case of the ‘Archbishop Ambrose and the Emperor Theodosius’ in the National Gallery, or that of the ‘Pietà’ in the Liechtenstein collection at Vienna, and made it into a painting of his own. This was probably with the full knowledge and approval of Rubens, who was most liberal to his brother artists. He employed the same school of engravers as Rubens, and many of his pictures were finely engraved by Paulus Pontius, Lucas Vorsterman, and other first-rate engravers. It is sometimes difficult to distinguish between the works of Rubens and Van Dyck when Van Dyck was working after Rubens. This is noteworthy in the case of the ‘St. Martin dividing his Cloak’ at Windsor, and the similar subject in the church of Saventhem. These two pictures closely resemble each other, the former, long ascribed to Rubens, being an early work and obviously the prior in execution, while the latter has for centuries been the centre of the romance in Van Dyck's early life on his way to Italy. It is probable that both were painted by Van Dyck. The picture at Saventhem seems to have been executed about 1629 for Ferdinand de Boisschot, Comte d'Erps and Baron van