The portraits of the famous art patron, The Earl of Arundel and his grandson, and of James Stuart, Duke of Lennox, came in this period, when the artist’s short life of forty-two years was drawing to a close. The Duke of Lennox was a cousin of the king, who created him first Duke of Richmond. The Duke is said to have offered to ascend the scaffold in the place of his noble cousin when Charles I was condemned. Whether the rank of the sitter prevented Van Dyck from allowing his assistants to have anything to do with the portrait we cannot know positively, but seldom has a more superb portrait come from his brush. How remorselessly the weakness of his character is given! Note the mastery in the placing of the star of the Order of the Garter, and the emphasis given to the devotion of the superbly painted greyhound.
There came into the market a few years ago a number of portraits from one of the old Genoese palaces, where they had hung since Van Dyck painted them. A majority of these pictures passed into American collections. Two were secured by Mr. Frick, and three more became a part of the Widener Collection in Philadelphia, where they hang in the company of two others of this master’s fine canvases.
PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 6, No. 9. SERIAL No. 157
COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.
IN THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, NEW YORK
YOUNG WOMAN WITH A WATER JUG, BY VERMEER
THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART
Jan Vermeer
FOUR
