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We are grateful to the Jordaens Van Dyck Panel Paintings Project for their kind assistance when preparing this catalogue note. We are also grateful to Professor Christopher Brown for the confirming the attribution of this work upon first-hand inspection.

This spirited oil sketch by Sir Anthony Van Dyck was painted in preparation for the altarpiece The Adoration of the Shepherds in Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk (The Church of Our Lady) in Dendermonde. For Van Dyck, oil sketches such as this example played a crucial role in procuring and fulfilling important commissions and it is therefore surprising how few are now recorded.

In the years immediately following his departure from Rubens’s studio, Van Dyck would explore compositional ideas for his more ambitious works using pen and ink on paper before committing his ideas to canvas or panel. During his so-called ‘second Antwerp period’, however, Van Dyck, now bursting with confidence after his recent trip to Italy to study the Old Masters, relied less on paper and began painting his initial thoughts and ideas straight onto panel, as seen here. These compositional designs (or ‘modelli’) could then be shown to prospective patrons for their comments and approval prior to undertaking a large-scale work. As fascinating records of artistic thought processes, these preparatory oil sketches were highly sought-after and Van Dyck was always reluctant to part with them. One of the few recorded instances when Van Dyck did allow a preparatory sketch to be sold with the finished work was in May 1631 when he allowed Canon Roger Braye (d.1632) to keep the preparatory sketch he made for The Raising of the Cross1 which Braye had recently commissioned on behalf of Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk (The Church of Our Lady) in Kortrijk.2 This gesture was perhaps unavoidable, however, as just one week earlier Braye had cunningly sent Van Dyck an unexpected gift of a dozen waffles.3

Although working in different mediums, clear parallels can be drawn between Van Dyck’s earlier ink sketches on paper and his later oil sketches on panel. Whilst his oil sketches are naturally more fluid given the smoother surface on which he was working, the characterisation of his subjects are very similar. Their faces, for example, are delineated in the same sharp, economical manner as seen in the earlier ink sketches with only a few quick strokes used to describe the facial features.

The altarpiece to which our work relates was commissioned by Cornelis Gheerolfs of Dendermonde and was to be placed behind an altar designed by the Brussels sculptor Hieronymus Duquesnoy the Elder (c.1570-1641), completed in late 1629. Although we do not know precisely when Van Dyck was awarded the commission, on 21 November 1631 he wrote a letter to Gheerolfs in which the altarpiece was discussed and on 24 August 1633 the altar was consecrated by Bishop Antonius Triest (1576-1657), a great patron of the arts whose portrait Van Dyck also painted.4 The fee Van Dyck charged was 500 guilders, plus 12 guilders 18 stivers for the canvas.5

The altarpiece recalls the moment a group of shepherds arrive in Bethlehem soon after the birth of Christ to pay their respects. The shepherds and shepherdesses bring humble gifts; the central figure kneeling before Christ brings a dead lamb, foreshadowing Christ’s death, and the standing female figure reaches into a basket for a gift of eggs, symbolic of birth and redemption. Although this scene was frequently depicted in Western art from the late 15th century onwards, Van Dyck sought to elevate the energy of the encounter and it is clear from studying both our work and the final composition that the artist changed his mind numerous times in the preparatory stages.

Judging by these amendments, it is evident that the overall aim was to reduce the width of the composition and increase the height. In the final painting Van Dyck moved the donkey and ox from the centre of the composition over to the far left, creating more space in the middle and allowing room for the shepherds to move closer to Christ. By repositioning the central figure above and behind Mary, the composition also gains height and connects the putti to the lower half of the composition. Van Dyck also reduced the background elements in the final work to just two classical columns which reinforces the vertical proportions of the composition and would have echoed the carved stone altar behind which the painting was situated.

As was typical of Van Dyck, colour was used sparingly in this oil sketch and was employed only to direct the viewers gaze and balance the composition. Naturally, the figure of the Virgin Mary is swathed in blue – a sacred and valuable hue – and the kneeling shepherd, with the hands reaching over the dead lamb, wears a drape coloured with red, perhaps in reference to Christ’s martyrdom. Bold white highlights also direct the viewer’s gaze around the composition and connect the different planes of perspective. White highlighting plays a central role in Van Dyck’s oil sketches from this date and in some works, such as The Ecstasy of Saint Augustine6 painted in 1628, colour is omitted entirely.

According to a wax seal previously affixed to the reverse of this work, the present oil sketch was once in the collection of Jean Baptiste Antoine (d.1691), Post Master General in Antwerp.7 Antoine amassed a considerable collection of works by Van Dyck and his posthumous inventory drawn up in 1692 lists thirty-five works including portraits of King Charles I (1600-1649) and Henrietta Maria

(1609-1669), a large painting of Saint Sebastian and a number of other sketches and preparatory head studies.8 Alongside each painting is a value ascribed by the painters and art valuers Jan Erasmus Quellinus (1634-1715) and Peter van der Willighen (1634-1694). Our work appears as ‘Een schetse Kersnacht van van Dyck’ (‘A sketch of the Nativity by Van Dyck’) and was valued at 72 guilders. The painting preceding ours in the inventory was Rinaldo and Armida,9 one of Van Dyck’s masterworks in grisaille painted c.1634-5 in preparation for an engraving.

A further connection can be drawn between our work and Rinaldo and Armida. Recent dendrochronological analysis undertaken by the Jordaens Van Dyck Panel Paintings Project has found that both works, along with another sketch Venus Disarming Mars10, were painted on oak planks sourced from the same region and most likely the same tree.11 Although our sketch has been shaved and then ‘cradled’ on the reverse at some point in the past, Rinaldo and Armida remains untouched and thus bears the initials of Antwerp panel maker Michiel Vriendt (d.1636/7), Van Dyck’s main panel supplier during his second Antwerp period. Vriendt, therefore, must have also supplied Van Dyck with the panel used for our sketch.

In the seminal monograph Van Dyck: A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings, the present work is mentioned under the catalogue note for the Dendermonde altarpiece in the section discussing Van Dyck’s work undertaken in Antwerp and Brussels between 1627 and 1635: (‘A further oil sketch, also varying Van Dyck’s composition, was in a private collection, London, in 1965 (panel 29.5 x 24cm; Larsen 1988, no. 683, ill.) […]’). This section of the catalogue was written by the late Horst Vey who, as far as we can establish, was only familiar with the sketch through a poor-quality black and white image reproduced in Erik Larsen’s The Paintings of Anthony Van Dyck published in 1988. The virtuosity of the sketch is not discernible in the reproduced image due to the extent of disfiguring over-paint which was presumably applied at some point in the past to ‘finish’ areas of the work and make it more saleable. These distracting elements may explain why our sketch was not assigned an individual catalogue number and discussed at greater length in the 2004 catalogue.

With these areas of unnecessary over-paint now removed, the full force of this oil sketch can be properly appreciated for the first time in several decades.

1. Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk, Kortrijk
2. S. J. Barnes, N. de Poorter, O. Millar, H. Vey, Van Dyck. A complete catalogue of the paintings, London 2004, p. 260
3. S. J. Barnes, N. de Poorter, O. Millar, H. Vey, Van Dyck. A complete catalogue of the paintings, London 2004, p. 261
4. Whereabouts unknown
5. S. J. Barnes, N. de Poorter, O. Millar, H. Vey, Van Dyck. A complete catalogue of the paintings, London 2004, p. 248
6. Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp
7. The wax stamp was present when catalogued by Sotheby’s in 2012 but was missing when Philip Mould & Co. took possession of the work after the sale
8. E. Duverger, Antwerpse Kunstinventarissen uit de zeventiende eeuw , Brussels 1984, vol. XII, p. 91
9. The National Gallery, London,
10. Christ Church, University of Cambridge
11. Dendrochronological Analysis Report LO022/2017 revised 2019. Available on request
5. S. J. Barnes, N. de Poorter, O. Millar, H. Vey, Van Dyck. A complete catalogue of the paintings, London 2004, p. 248
6. Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp
7. The wax stamp was present when catalogued by Sotheby’s in 2012 but was missing when Philip Mould & Co. took possession of the work after the sale
8. E. Duverger, Antwerpse Kunstinventarissen uit de zeventiende eeuw , Brussels 1984, vol. XII, p. 91
9. The National Gallery, London,
10. Christ Church, University of Cambridge
11. Dendrochronological Analysis Report LO022/2017 revised 2019. Available on request