Brief Biography-Sir Anthony van Dyck, the son of a silk trader, was born in Antwerp. By the age of ten, Hendrick van Balen, also of Antwerp, took him on as an apprentice. In 1615, he set up a workshop, and the Guild of Saint Luke admitted him in 1618. By this year he was working in the atelier of Peter Paul Rubens. In 1620, he visited London where James I paid him £100 for services.
From 1621, Van Dyck travelled to Italy, a trip inspired by the collection of Titian and Veronese's paintings belonging to the Earl of Arundel in England. In Rome, he had disagreements with the Bentvueghels who were a group of Flemish and Dutch artists that set up there the year before. Genoa was his principal residence from where he went to Palermo and received notable commissions, the Madonna of the Rosary being one, however, with the outbreak of plague he returned to Genoa. Having already been influenced by Rubens, the works of Italian artists including Correggio, also influenced him in Genoa. It is there that he developed his true grand style of portraiture which had been encouraged initially by Rubens.
He returned to Antwerp c. 1626 where he painted historical subjects and portraits. Archduchess Isabella engaged him there, and he worked for the Prince of Orange in the Hague. Van Dyck achieved his meteoric rise to fame primarily through his portraiture as Court Painter to Charles I of England. He was designated Principal Painter in Ordinary to their Majesties at Saint James's, and in 1632, the King bestowed on him a Knighthood.
In 1634, he revisited Brussels and Antwerp. However, his trip to Paris upset him as Poussin received the commission to decorate the gallery of the Louvre, which was an engagement he had desired. He died back in England in 1641 and interred in Saint Paul's Cathedral. Anthony van Dyck's paintings were to influence many of England's great portraitists after him.