Published to accompany the exhibition held at Tate Britain, London, 18 Feb.-17 May 2009.

The first major examination of Anthony van Dyck's work as a portraitist and an essential resource on this aspect of his illustrious career This landmark volume is a comprehensive survey of the portrait drawings, paintings, and prints of Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641), one of the most celebrated portraitists of all time. His supremely elegant style and ability to convey a sense of a sitter's inner life made him a favored portraitist among high-ranking figures and royalty across Europe, as well as among his fellow artists and art enthusiasts. Showcasing the full range of Van Dyck's fascinating international career with more than 100 works, this catalogue celebrates the artist's versatility, inventiveness, and influential approach to portraiture. Works include preparatory drawings and oil sketches that shed light on Van Dyck's working process, prints that allowed his work to reach a wider audience, and grand painted portraits. Some of the masterpieces are drawn from the exceptional holdings of The Frick Collection, while other works are presented here for the first time. Also included are drawings by some of Van Dyck's contemporaries--including his teacher Peter Paul Rubens--that illuminate the lineage of his working method. With insightful contributions by a team of international scholars, this unparalleled study of Van Dyck offers a compelling case for the distinctiveness and importance of the artist's work.

A beautiful, lively tour through the portraits of one of the most celebrated painters of 17th century Europe In this sumptuously illustrated volume, eminent art historian Sir Christopher White places the portraiture of renowned Flemish painter Anthony Van Dyck (1599-1641) in context among the work of his contemporaries working in and around the courts of seventeenth-century Europe. Van Dyck's artistic development is charted through his travels, beginning in his native Antwerp, then to England, Italy, Brussels, the Hague, and back again. Combining historical insights with a discerning appreciation of the work, White brings Van Dyck's paintings to life, showing how the virtuoso not only admired his artistic predecessors and rivals but refashioned what he learned from them into new kind of portraiture. Beautifully produced and a pleasure to read, this book is an important contribution to the literature on a celebrated painter.

The Dutch-born English Baroque portrait painter Sir Peter Lely (1618-1680) is chiefly known for his drowsy, sensual beauties and bewigged courtiers associated with the Restoration court of Charles II. He is often seen as merely successor or "imitator" of Sir Anthony Van Dyck (1599-1641), with a common resemblance in all his sitters and an inability to capture a true likeness, as well as an absence of any personal characterization or psychological interest. Alternately, this dissertation aims to reveal Lely's genius of superb draughtsmanship, fine color and lively composition, as well as to examine and reinstate the artist's impact and deep impress on British painting. Lely's early style owes much to his Dutch origin and training with the pioneers of Dutch classicism, and the distinctive qualities of his early work and the change in his traditions and techniques are examined. The development of Lely's portrait style is examined - from his arrival in England in the early 1640s through his years as leading aristocratic and society portraitist and Principal Painter to the King in the 1660s, to his mature work in the 1670s when his work is characterized by a restricted palette and cool restraint. And finally, Lely as collector is examined. He assembled one of the largest and most impressive private collections of art in seventeenth-century Europe, and his acquisitions and their influences, benefits and effects are considered. Upon Lely's death, his highly important collection was dispersed by auction in a series of four well-publicized sales in 1681, 1682, 1688 and 1694, respectively. These sales brought many important works to the London art market, and were some of the most important sales to date in England, as well as the most spectacular of the modern auction world. Although Lely initially emulated the style and techniques of Van Dyck, he juxtaposed his profound Dutch qualities of rich color, dramatic illumination and romantic landscapes, and ultimately imbued a sensuality, languor and luxurious negligence into the traditions and continuity of Van Dyck's grand Baroque style of English portraiture. Subsequently, together later with Sir Godfrey Kneller (1646-1723), Sir Peter Lely completely dominated British portraiture from the death of Van Dyck in 1641 until William Hogarth (1697-1764) challenged his style in the first half of the eighteenth century. Due to large file size, some images within this ebook do not appear in high resolution.