Saint Martin and the Beggar (van Dyck) Saint Martin and the Beggar (van Dyck) Saint Martin and the Beggar is a c.1618 painting of Saint Martin of Tours by the Flemish painter Anthony van Dyck. The painting portrays the saint sharing his cloak with a beggar. It had been in van Dyck's studio for some time by 1621 and may have been completed around 1618. In 1621 he was commissioned by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Brabant, Ferdinand de Boisschot, to deliver a painting of St Martin for the church dedicated to that saint in Zaventem. Van Dyck gave him this painting in fulfilment of the
Anthony van Dyck in Antwerp, returning the following year, and in 1640–41, as the Civil War loomed, spent several months in Flanders and France. In 1640 he accompanied prince John Casimir of Poland after he was freed from French imprisonment. A letter dated 13 August 1641, from Lady Roxburghe in England to a correspondent in The Hague, reported that van Dyck was recuperating from a long illness. In November van Dyck's condition worsened, and he returned to England from Paris, where he had gone to paint Cardinal Richelieu. He died in London on 9 December 1641. In the 17th century, demand for portraits