The encouragement which Charles I. extended to the fine arts, and his liberality in patronising them, induced him to think that a suitable field for the exercise of his talents was open to him in our country. Accordingly about 1632 he arrived in London. England was not, however, quite strange to him, for about eleven years previously—that is, before his departure to Italy—he had already been here upon a visit. Upon this occasion, however, he does not appear to have succeeded in attracting the attentions of the king, and consequently he did not meet with the success he had counted upon. Remaining but a few months, he decided to return to Antwerp, fully resolved to make it a permanent place of abode.
Meanwhile, however, Rubens had been sent by the Infanta Isabella on a diplomatic visit to Charles, who received him in the most gracious manner and created him a knight. The flattering attentions bestowed upon Rubens during his stay, coupled with his estimation of the king's character and taste, created a most favourable impression upon him, and when he returned to Antwerp he probably dispelled in a measure Van Dyck's antipathy to our country. Meanwhile Charles had seen the latter's portrait of Nicholas Lanière, his chapel master, and was so impressed with its qualities that he sent an invitation to Van Dyck to return.
An opportunity so favourable to advancement was not lightly to be passed over, and Van Dyck decided once more to try his fortune here.
This decision constituted a turning-point in the life and style of the artist, and we shall see him in England passing the most prosperous years of his life.
IV
VAN DYCK IN ENGLAND
There never was a time in the history of the English Court when such opportunities for advancement were presented to an artist possessing the genius of Van Dyck as during the reign of Charles I. He was one of the few monarchs of England who recognised the civilising influence of art on the nation and encouraged it in a manner quite beyond his means. It mattered not of what period, school, or nationality a work happened to be, so long as it possessed a high degree of merit, it appealed strongly to the king. We have only to consider the superb collection he brought together, only to be ruthlessly dispersed by the Commonwealth, to gauge the refinement of his taste. Many of the priceless possessions of foreign galleries formed part of his collection, and if England had only been in a position to retain her hold upon them we should no doubt to-day be in possession of the finest assemblage of Italian art in the world. I need only enumerate the sumptuous portrait of Alfonso of Ferrara and Laura d'Dianti and the "Entombment," by Titian, in the Louvre; the portrait of Erasmus, by Holbein, in the Louvre, and the marvellous portrait of a young woman, for so many years wrongly ascribed to the same master, at the Hague; the portrait of Albrecht Dürer by himself in the Prado, and the two masterpieces by Geertgen van St. Jans in the Imperial Gallery at Vienna, to demonstrate the quality of his many possessions. In England we still have retained a few of his treasures. Conspicuous among them are those masterpieces of Andrea Mantegna, the "Triumph of Julius Cæsar," at Hampton Court, the Albrecht Dürer, and the Lorenzo Lotto, in the same gallery, together with the "Mercury, Cupid and Venus," by Correggio, in the National Gallery.