Christ Crowned with Thorns (van Dyck) then bought by Philip IV of Spain, who held it in the Escorial before it entered the Prado Museum in 1839. Christ Crowned with Thorns (van Dyck) Christ Crowned with Thorns is a 1619-20 painting by Anthony van Dyck. He produced it aged 20 during his first Antwerp period, when he was the main studio assistant and pupil of Peter Paul Rubens. It shows Rubens' influence in its relatively sombre palette, chiaroscuro and highly realistic portrayal of musculature. He seems to have completed it early during his stay in Italy, since it also shows the influence of Titian and other
Anthony van Dyck of his Sicilian works are individualistic. Van Dyck's portraits certainly flattered more than Velázquez's; when Sophia, later Electoress of Hanover, first met Queen Henrietta Maria, in exile in Holland in 1641, she wrote: "Van Dyck's handsome portraits had given me so fine an idea of the beauty of all English ladies, that I was surprised to find that the Queen, who looked so fine in painting, was a small woman raised up on her chair, with long skinny arms and teeth like defence works projecting from her mouth..." Some critics have blamed van Dyck for diverting a nascent, tougher English