Van Dyck - Les Echevins de Bruxelles autour de la statue de la Justice, 1634

''Magistrates of Brussels'' was a 1634-35 oil painting by

Anthony van Dyck Sir Anthony van Dyck (, many variant spellings; 22 March 1599 – 9 December 1641) was a Brabantian Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England after success in the Southern Netherlands and Italy. The seventh c ...

. It was destroyed in the French bombardment of Brussels in 1695. Its composition is known from a grisaille sketch in the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, which Van Dyck prepared to show how he planned to lay out the work. Van Dyck was paid 2,400 florins for the painting in 1628, intended for Brussels Town Hall. It was painted in a period when Van Dyck had returned to the Netherlands. The work was completed in 1634-5 and included portraits of seven magistrates in council, around a statue representing Justice. At least four sketches of magistrates' heads for the same work are known to exist, each with a distinctive pink background. Two are in the

Ashmolean Museum The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology () on Beaumont Street, Oxford, England, is Britain's first public museum. Its first building was erected in 1678–1683 to house the cabinet of curiosities that Elias Ashmole gave to the University of ...

at Oxford. A third was in the collection of the Saint Louis Art Museum from 1952 to 2010, and later sold to a private collector. A fourth (''

Magistrate of Brussels ''Magistrate of Brussels'' is an unfinished oil painting or oil sketch by Anthony van Dyck, rediscovered in 2013 after being shown on episodes of the BBC television programme '' Antiques Roadshow''. The work was purchased for £400 from a Na ...

'') was rediscovered in England in 2013. A further work in the

Royal Collection The Royal Collection of the British royal family is the largest private art collection in the world. Spread among 13 occupied and historic royal residences in the United Kingdom, the collection is owned by King Charles III and overseen by the ...

may also be from the same series.

References

A Study for the Head of a Magistrate of Brussels
Artnet
Masters of the loaded brush: oil sketches from Rubens to Tiepolo
p. 75-76

External links

Sir Anthony van Dyck (1599 - 1641): Head of a bearded Man wearing a Wheel Ruff
Ashmolean
Sir Anthony van Dyck (1599 - 1641): Head of a bearded Man wearing a Falling Ruff
Ashmolean
A Study for the Head of a Magistrate of Brussels
Fergus Hall *
New Van Dyck discovery
Art History News, 5 January 2014
A new Van Dyck discovery at the Royal Collection
Art History News, 15 May 2013 {{Authority control Portraits by Anthony van Dyck 1630s paintings Lost paintings Brussels in art

See also

References

External links