(Antwerp 1599–1641 London)
Portrait of Ferdinand de Boisschot, Baronet of Saventhem (1571–1649), three-quarter-length, as Knight of the Order of Santiago,
oil on canvas, 122 x 93 cm, framed

Provenance:
possibly Collection of Sir Abraham Hume (1749–1838), London;
possibly thence by descent to his grandson John Hume Egerton Viscount Alford (1812–1851);
thence by descent to his son Adelbert Wellington Brownlow-Cust (1844–1921), 3rd Earl Brownlow;
by whose executors sold Christie’s, London, 4 May 1923, lot 100 (as Van Dyck);
with Ehrlich Galleries, New York, 1929;
with John Levy Galleries, New York, 1930;
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Charles E. F. McCann, New York;
sale, Parke-Bernet Galleries Inc., New York, 21 February 1945, lot 39 (as Sir Anthony van Dyck);
McMullan, New York;
sale, Parke-Bernet Galleries Inc., New York, 2 March 1950, lot 17a (as Sir Anthony van Dyck);
Private collection, New York;
sale, Sotheby’s, New York, 26 May 2005, lot 80 (as Anthony van Dyck and Studio);
where acquired by the present owner

Exhibited:
Omaha, Nebraska, Society of Liberal Arts, Joslyn Memorial, 1942–1944 (according to literature)

Literature:
G. Glück, Van Dyck. Des Meisters Gemälde, Stuttgart/Berlin 1931, p. 553, mentioned under no. 310 (as replica);
E. Larsen, L’opera completa di Van Dyck (1626-1641), Milan 1980, p. 99, mentionend under no. 657 (as replica);
E. Larsen, Van Dyck. The Paintings, Düsseldorf 1988, vol. II, p. 437, mentioned under A85, no. 2 (under studio replicas or copies of the original)

The present painting is registered in the RDK database under no. 0000150691 (as after Anthony van Dyck).

We are grateful to Christopher Brown for confirming the attribution of the present painting on the basis of a photograph.

The present portrait depicts one of Anthony van Dyck’s most important clients, Ferdinand de Boisschot, identified through an engraving by Adriaen Lommelin (see J.F. van Someren, Beschrijvende catalogus van gegraveerde portretten van Nederlanders, vol. II, 1888, no. 600). As a jurist and diplomat in the service of the Sovereign Archdukes Albert and Isabella, de Boisschot was sent to London and Paris between 1611 and 1623. In 1615 Philipp III of Spain made him a Knight of the Order of Santiago, to which the red cross on the sitter’s tunic refers. In 1623 he advanced to States-Counsellor and Chancellor of Brabant, the highest civilian function in the Duchy.

In the early 1620s, Ferdinand de Boisschot became a patron of van Dyck, from whom he commissioned two paintings for the village church of Saventhem, a Holy Family which was destroyed during the Franco-Dutch War in 1672, and a St. Martin dividing his cloak which is still kept in the church.

After his return from Italy, in 1630 van Dyck painted companion portraits of Ferdinand de Boisschot and his wife Anna Maria de Çamudio, a Basque who he had met in Brussels where she was serving as the Archduchess Isabella’s lady-in-waiting. The portrait of Anna Maria which is similar in measurement (112 x 96 cm), was last recorded in the collection of the descendants of the Duke Prosper d’Arenberg in Brussels, its current location is unknown. As there are several versions of the Baronet’s portrait, the question of the original version is still the subject of scholarly debate.

In 1929 William R. Valentiner stated in a now unavailable but passed-on authentication: ‘The painting reproduced in this photograph is in my opinion a characteristic and original work by Anthony van Dyck, painted during his second Antwerp period. […] It is painted most likely in 1630, since a replica of the head has the date of his year. The painting is an excellent example of van Dyck’s style of his middle period […].’ (see Parke-Bernet, 1950, in provenance).