The Betrayal of Christ (van Dyck, Bristol) The Betrayal of Christ (van Dyck, Bristol) The Betrayal of Christ is a c.1618-20 painting by Anthony van Dyck. He also produced two other versions of the same subject at around the same time, now in Madrid and Minneapolis. It was acquired by Paul Methuen. He bequeathed it to his cousin and godson Paul Methuen in 1757, who displayed it at Corsham Court. It remained in the family until 1984, when it was accepted by the UK government in lieu of inheritance tax and allocated to Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, which continues to hang it at Corsham Court. It
Anthony van Dyck his "Iconography", eventually a very large series of prints with half-length portraits of eminent contemporaries. Van Dyck produced drawings, and for eighteen of the portraits he himself etched with great brilliance the heads and the main outlines of the figure, for an engraver to work up: "Portrait etching had scarcely had an existence before his time, and in his work it suddenly appears at the highest point ever reached in the art". However, for most of the series he left the whole printmaking work to specialists, who mostly engraved everything after his drawings. His own etched plates appear not to