P. Carolus Scribani S. J. (1561-1629)

Carolus Scribani died in 1629, around the time van Dyck painted him, and he had been one of the builders of Jesuit Antwerp. He served as rector of the order's colleges in Antwerp and Brussels, and he set in motion the building of the Jesuit church in Antwerp, the richly decorated church now dedicated to Saint Charles Borromeo, whose ceilings Rubens designed. Van Dyck shows him as a man of hard will and ascetic habits, with only a crucifix and a book beside him and a column behind to give the figure weight. The painting probably hung in the Antwerp Jesuit college, where it was recorded in 1748. It came to Vienna in 1774, the year after the pope dissolved the Jesuit order.