(Antwerp 1599 – 1641 Blackfriars/London) workshop of ,
Portrait of Queen Maria de’Medici, oil on canvas, 114 x 94.5 cm, lovely old Flemish frame,

This portrait unknown until now is an interesting discovery. It is a scaled-down version of a full-length painting in the museum at Bordeaux, oil on canvas, 225 x 140 cm (see Barnes, De Poorter, Millar und Vey, 2004, III, 105, p. 332). Paulus Pontius produced an engraving in reverse based on the Bordeaux portrait. This shows the hand with the rose and the curtain with the ‘fleur de lys’, the Bourbon lily and the French crown set off against the sky. Prof Horst Vey concludes from this, ‘... that the engraving was presumably executed after a scaled-down version, for instance, after the one at Longford Castle (Schaeffer 1909, p. 451; Larsen 1988, no. A96/2), which it closely resembles. One cannot discount the fact that it might be based on this current painting, which appears to be more carefully worked that the version at Longford Castle and consequently may be the model for the engraving by Paulus Pontius. The head, above all, and the hands in the present painting testify to the high quality of the hand of van Dyck. During his visit to Antwerp, van Dyck produced the full-length portrait of Queen Maria de’Medici. Maria’s biographer wrote, “Art has never managed to portray her Majesty on the throne as well as the new portrait which he (van Dyck) has made of her.” By these means it is confirmed that van Dyck had already executed other versions. Oliver Millar writes, “When Van Dyck eventually arrived in London early in April 1632, he probably brought with him portraits of the Queen’s Mother, Marie de Medici and the Archduchess Isabella; and it was proposed that he should paint for them portraits of the King and Queen” (The complete catalogue of the paintings, 2004, Barnes, De Poorter, Millar, Vey, p. 420)