Portrait of a Man

Artist Anthony van Dyck (Flemish, 1599 - 1641)

Dateca. 1620/1621

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsOverall: 45 1/2 × 35 9/16 inches (115.57 × 90.33 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Object number51-69

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

European Art

Terms

DescriptionThree-quarter-length portrait of a gentleman with pointed beard and mustache dressed in black with white ruff, standing with right arm resting on back of tooled leather chair. Left hand at belt, the thumb beneath the belt. Red curtain forming left background, landscape scene at right.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Exhibition of Old Masters, David Koetser Gallery, New York, February 1–March 17, 1951, no. 12.

Gallery Label

This is one of van Dyck's earliest portraits painted in Antwerp when he was still working in the studio of Peter Paul Rubens. The leather chair with gilt studs on which the sitter leans was a Rubens studio prop and appears in other portraits by Rubens and van Dyck from this time. That the artist's skills were still developing is detectable in the sitter's slightly awkward pose and the loose, broad brushwork, which in certain areas of the face and ruff is barely under control. The man's glance to his right suggests the painting may have had a pendant, possibly a portrait of the sitter's wife, who, like the sitter himself, remains unidentified.

Provenance

Robert Child (1739-1782), Osterley Park, Middlesex, England, as Portrait of a Man Leaning on a Chair, by 1782 [1];

By descent to George Francis Child Villiers, Ninth Earl of Jersey (1910-1998), Osterley Park, Middlesex, England, by July 15, 1949;

Purchased at his sale, Pictures by Old Masters, Christie’s, London, July 15, 1949, lot 166, as by Rubens, by David M. Koetser (d. 1992), New York, 1949-December 29, 1951;

Purchased from Koetser by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1951.

NOTES:

[1] According to a letter from David M. Koetser to Paul Gardner, NAMA Director, December 6, 1951, NAMA curatorial file, the painting was in the possession of the Earl of Jersey’s family at Osterley Park “for several generations.”

Published References

Catalogue of Pictures by Old Masters, The Properties of The Rt. Hon. The Earl of Jersey, The Rt. Hon. The Viscount Ridley, C.B.E., The Rt. Hon. The Earl of Shaftesbury, K.P., P.C., G.C.V.O., The Late The Hon. Mrs. George Keppel, Also Pictures and Drawings from Other Sources (London: Christie, Manson and Woods, July 15, 1949), 20.

Exhibition of Old Masters, exh. cat. (New York: David Koetser Gallery, 1951), unpaginated.

Winifred Shields, “First Time at Nelson Gallery,” The Kansas City Star (October 3, 1952): unpaginated, (repro.).

Ross E. Taggart, ed., Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4^th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 96, (repro.).

Michael Jaffé, “The Flemish and Dutch Schools,” Apollo 96, no. 130 (December 1972): 38, (repro.) [repr. in Denys Sutton, ed., William Rockhill Nelson Gallery, Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City (London: Apollo Magazine, 1972), 506, (repro.)].

Ross E. Taggart and George L. McKenna, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. 1, Art of the Occident, 5^th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 124, (repro.).

Erik Larsen, L’Opera Completa di Van Dyck, 1613-1626, trans. Maurizio Vita (Milan: Rizzoli, 1980), no. 277, p. 105, (repro.).

Maurice Tomlin, “The 1782 Inventory of Osterly Park,” Furniture History: The Journal of the Furniture History Society 22 (1986): 122.

Erik Larsen, The Paintings of Anthony van Dyck, vol. 2 (Freren: Luca, 1988): no. 20, pp. 16-17, (repro.).

Susan J. Barnes, et. al., Van Dyck: A Complete Catalogue of the Painting (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), no. I.143, p. 126-27, (repro.).

Information about a particular artwork or image, including provenance information, is based upon historic information and may not be currently accurate or complete. Research on artwork and images is an ongoing process, and the information about a particular artwork or image may not reflect the most current information available to the Museum. If you notice a mistake or have additional information about a particular artwork or image, please e-mail provenance@nelson-atkins.org.