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Lot Essay
Moselius records that this picture, apparently unpublished, was accepted by both Friedländer and Burchard. Comparable is the Portrait of a Man at the Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, Ohio (J.A. Goris and J.S. Held, Rubens in America, New York, 1947, no. 20, pl. 12). Both are probably slightly later than the Munich portrait of Hendrik van Thulden (M. Jaffé, Rubens, Milan, 1989, p. 221, no. 391, illustrated) - the high point of Rubens' portraiture in the period c. 1615-1620, the date given to the present picture by Burchard.
It has been suggested that van Thulden is also the sitter here, but this cannot be accepted; rather the sitter would appear to have some resemblance with the main sitter in the picture in the National Gallery, London, no. 49, which Oliver Millar considers to be certainly by van Dyck and to depict George Gage (c. 1592-1638) (O. Millar, Notes on three Pictures by van Dyck, The Burlington Magazine, CXI, no. 796, July 1969, pp. 414-18). Gage was in Antwerp negotiating a purchase of pictures from Rubens in 1616-17.
It has been suggested that van Thulden is also the sitter here, but this cannot be accepted; rather the sitter would appear to have some resemblance with the main sitter in the picture in the National Gallery, London, no. 49, which Oliver Millar considers to be certainly by van Dyck and to depict George Gage (c. 1592-1638) (O. Millar, Notes on three Pictures by van Dyck, The Burlington Magazine, CXI, no. 796, July 1969, pp. 414-18). Gage was in Antwerp negotiating a purchase of pictures from Rubens in 1616-17.