Autorretrato

By 1640 Anthony van Dyck had spent most of a decade in London as principal painter to Charles I, turning out the elegant court portraits that fixed how we still picture the doomed Stuart king and his circle. This is one of only three self-portraits he made in England, and almost certainly the last. He shows himself fashionably dressed and caught mid-gesture, his right shoulder turned as if his hand were raised to a canvas we cannot see. The broad, unfinished handling of the costume against the carefully worked face suggests he painted quickly, or was experimenting away from the demands of a paying sitter. Within about a year he was dead, at 42, worn down by illness and overwork. The gilded frame, crested with a sunflower he often used as his personal emblem, was likely designed with his own involvement.