The Painter Martin Ryckaert

Anthony van Dyck painted this around 1631, back in his native Antwerp between spells abroad, and the sitter was a friend and fellow painter, Marten Ryckaert, who made small imaginary landscapes. Ryckaert had only one arm, from birth or an early accident, and where another portraitist might have hidden the loss, Van Dyck lets the empty side show, dressing him in a rich fur-trimmed robe and seating him like a gentleman of means. The portrait was engraved for the Iconography, the series of portrait prints he was assembling of the notable men of his day, and the Latin line under that plate, naming the one-armed Antwerp landscape painter, is how we know who the sitter is. Ryckaert died the same year, at 43, which places this among the last images made of him from life.