Van Dyck: A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings »

Sir Anthony Van Dyck (1599-1641) is among the greatest portrait painters of all time. The 1990s opened and closed with major exhibitions devoted to his work, and now the long-awaited catalogue raisonné of his painted oeuvre is complete. A native of Antwerp, Van Dyck also lived and worked for long periods in Italy and England, where his brief, productive life ended. He is best known for his work at the court of Charles I. His full-length portraits of aristocrats in the Caroline court and in Genoa, Antwerp, Brussels, and The Hague influenced the history of Western portraiture into the twentieth century in the work of John Singer Sargent. Handsomely designed and illustrated, the volume includes a reproduction of every known authentic painting by the artist as well as the provenance and the significant facts and literature on each. This catalogue raisonné is, fittingly, the collaborative work of an international team devoted to the study of this major international artist.

Author Biography: Susan J. Barnes, an independent art historian, co-curated a Van Dyck exhibit in Washington, D.C., 1990. Nora De Poorter is director of the Rubenianum, Antwerp. Oliver Millar, Surveyor Emeritus of The Queen's Pictures, organized an exhibition of Van Dyck's English work at the National Portrait Gallery, London, 1982-83. Horst Vey, former director of the Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe, is author of the standard work on Van Dyck's drawings.

Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art

Library Journal

This catalog of the paintings of Sir Anthony Van Dyck, the first since G. Gluck in 1931, is organized chronologically and geographically into four parts, each containing an introductory essay by a contributing scholar. The first two sections cover Van Dyck's apprenticeship to Rubens, who dominated Antwerp, and his early independent works; his departure for Italy to find clients and establish a reputation; and his time in Rome and Genoa, where he developed a following as a fashionable portrait painter and courted the English and Spanish nobility. The third section covers his return to Antwerp, when his history painting equaled that of Rubens and his portraits were in demand. The fourth section highlights Van Dyck's working style, noting his assembly-line techniques as court painter to Charles I of England. In each part, the many reproductions (150 color, 450 b&w), arranged by subject-matter paintings followed by the portraits, are thoroughly described by title, location, size, material, provenance, and literature citations. This encyclopedic work should be acquired by university, museum, and research collections and large public libraries. Ellen Bates, New York Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.