Anthony van Dyck self portrait (Metropolitan Museum of Art) Anthony van Dyck self portrait (Metropolitan Museum of Art) The Metropolitan Museum of Art possesses in its collection a self portrait painted by Flemish artist Anthony van Dyck. Done in oil on canvas, the work depicts its creator during his early twenties. The self portrait was likely painted by van Dyck during the winter of 1620-1621, which the artist spent in London. van Dyck chose to render a depiction of himself as a country gentlemen dressed in fine clothes; he likely acquired these clothes due to his father being a wealthy clothier. The painting was donated to the Met by
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