Brief Biography-Sir Anthony van Dyck, the son of a silk trader, was born in Antwerp. Hendrick van Balen, also of Antwerp, took him on as an apprentice by age ten. 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. Then, 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 paintings by Titian and Veronese belonging to the Earl of Arundel in England. In Rome, he had disagreements with the Bentvueghels, a group of Flemish and Dutch artists that had 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, he returned to Genoa with the plague outbreak. Having already been influenced by Rubens, the works of Italian artists, including Correggio, also influenced him in Genoa. There, 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 a 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 in England in 1641; his remains lie in Saint Paul’s Cathedral. Anthony van Dyck’s paintings influenced many of England’s great portraitists after him.