Man with a Lute

For a long time this man had a name. He was said to be Jacques Gaultier, a French lutenist who was first lute at the English court between 1617 and 1647, in the service of Charles I. The identification has quietly come apart, since the portraits we have of Gaultier show a heavier man with a thick head of curls. What is certain is that this sitter knows the instrument. He holds the long-necked archlute with both hands, in the grip of someone who plays it, and Van Dyck put everything else in shadow, black clothes against a dark ground, so that only the face, the hands and the white edges of collar and cuffs come forward. Painted around 1627, it looks like the portrait of a professional. Then again, the lute was a courtly accomplishment as much as a trade, and a sword hangs at this man's waist, which is not what a working musician wore.