Lucas Vorsterman

The early to mid-seventeenth century was an outstanding age of portrait prints. Between 1630 and 1632 Anthony van Dyck, the greatest pupil of Peter Paul Rubens, produced a major series of lively engraved portraits called the Iconography. Included among the 114 prints of artists, soldiers, statesmen, and scholars was this one of Lucas Vorsterman (1595–1675), one of the most adept engravers after Rubens’s paintings. Van Dyck and Vorsterman had a long association. Van Dyck may have provided drawings for Vorsterman’s prints after Rubens; he made portraits of him in numerous media; and he was a godfather to Vorsterman’s daughter Antonia. This portrait demonstrates Van Dyck’s combination of dramatic flair and refined technique. The Iconography proved to be influential not only for the history of printmaking but for the evolving image of the artist. By according artists the honor of formal portraiture, the Iconography helped elevate the status of artists to match that of their distinguished contemporaries.