Portrait of Philippe le Roy, baron of Broechem

By 1630 the Dutch had the Scheldt shut again and Antwerp was cut off from the sea, a city where money moved into land and titles rather than trade. Philippe Le Roy had made that move. He was the illegitimate grandson of an Antwerp manufacturer, sharp with money, and he bought the feudal rights to the villages of Ravels and Eel along with the right to call himself their lord.

What he then commissioned from van Dyck was a portrait over two metres tall, full length and life size. The date is 1630, most likely the year of his betrothal. The companion portrait of his bride Marie de Raet followed in 1631, when she was 17. Van Dyck signed this canvas on the stone step at Le Roy's feet, which he did on very few of his pictures.