Last week, an early-career portrait of Flemish artist Cornelis de Vos and his family by then 20-year-old artist Anthony van Dyck hit the block at a Sotheby’s Old Masters evening sale in London. Recovered by the famed World War II team of art experts known as the Monuments Men and returned to its original Jewish-Dutch owners in 1948, the painting wound up selling for $3.4 million, making it the sixth-most expensive work by the artist ever to sell at auction.
Among the most highly regarded Flemish Baroque painters, van Dyck had a prolific career as a portraitist in the 17th century. Known for his depictions of wealthy sitters, in particular members of British royalty, he has become one of the top sellers in the Old Masters category at auction. Many of the most expensive works were considered rediscoveries when they first headed to auction.
Sales to important museums have bolstered the value of van Dyck paintings in recent years. In 2014, the National Portrait Gallery in London bought a self-portrait made just before the artist’s death in 1641 for £10 million ($16 million). That marked an increase in value from when that same self-portrait set the artist’s auction record in 2009, selling for £8.3 million ($13.5 million). And in 2018, the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest purchased van Dyck’s wedding portrait of King Charles I’s daughter during a Christie’s Old Masters evening sale in London for $7.5 million.
Below, a list of the portraitist’s top public sales.
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Portrait of Charles II, Prince of Wales, ca. 1632
Sold for: $3.4 million
A counterpart to van Dyck’s portrait of Princess Mary Henrietta (below, at #2), this portrait of the girl’s older brother, 11-year-old Prince Charles II sold at Sotheby’s in February 2018 during an Old Masters evening sale for $3.4 million, against an estimate of £2 million ($2.7 million). The two pictures were the last commissions the artist painted for his royal patron before his death in 1641.
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Portrait of Hendrick Liberti, 1630
Sold for: $4.5 million
When this painting came to auction in 2014 at Christie’s in London, it had rarely been seen by anyone, not even devoted van Dyck scholars. The artist’s 1630 portrait had at the time been owned by the family of the Dukes of Grafton, descendants of which bought it at auction in 1923. Having once been held by Charles I of England, the painting was estimated at $3.9 million. It wound up selling to a collector for $4.5 million.
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Two Studies of a Bearded Man, ca. 17th century
Sold for: $7.5 million
While the artist’s later works typically command his highest prices, a few early-career examples have achieved several of the artist’s top publicly-recorded prices. These paintings tend to be marked by a looser painterly style, and some depict less wealthy sitters. Van Dyck’s third-highest auction sale was for an early work titled Two Studies of a Bearded Man (ca. 17th century), which brought in $7.25 million at Sotheby’s New York in 2010. It sold from the collection of British ranching heir Montgomery Ritchie.
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Princess Mary Henrietta Stuart, 1641
Sold for: $7.5 million
In 2018, this wedding portrait of the nine-year old Princess Mary Henrietta Stuart, daughter of King Charles I, sold to Budapest’s Museum of Fine Arts at a Christie’s Old Masters sale in London for $7.5 million. It was a market increase in value since its last auction appearance, in 1989, when it sold for £880,000. One of the last paintings that van Dyck ever made, the work was commissioned to commemorate a political alliance formed between the British and the Dutch courts with the marriage of Princess Mary to Holland’s William II, Prince of Orange, who was 14 years old at the time. The Museum of Fine Arts’s purchase was funded entirely by a grant backed by the Hungarian government.
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Self-Portrait, ca. 1640
Sold for: $13.5 million
Painted just before the artist’s career was cut short at age 42 by an illness, this self-portrait was bought by British dealer Phillip Mould and American collector Alfred Bader in December 2009 at Sotheby’s in London. They purchased it for a record-setting £8.3 million ($13.5 million), four times the work’s low estimate. The painting had last been held by the Earl of Jersey’s Trust, which had owned it for nearly three centuries. Mould then attempted to sell the work, but, because it was dubbed a national treasure in the U.K., the work was barred from export after recommendation from a government agency overseeing the preservation of cultural heritage. In 2014, the National Portrait Gallery acquired this self-portrait by van Dyck for £10 million.