1994 Articles

Van Dyck and Virginio Cesarini: A Contribution to the Study of Van Dyck's Roman Sojourns

Freedberg, David A.

Van Dyck was in Rome between February and August 1622, and again between March and October or November 1623. A small group of half- or near three-quarter-length portraits, each one tinged with melancholy and each representing someone Van Dyck probably knew intimately, has been assigned to one or the other of these sojourns. The portraits are painted in a restricted, almost monochromatic range of colors that seems at complete odds with the great coloristic performances of the first Roman stay, namely the incomparable, shimmering portraits of Sir Robert and Teresia Lady Shirley, and the wistful, search splendor of the picture of Cardinal Guido Bentivoglio.