Artwork · 17th century · Anthony van Dyck

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Lucas van Uffel (died 1637)

Anthony van Dyckca. 1622Oil on canvas124.5 × 100.6 cm

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At a glance

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A man in a fur-trimmed black cloak twists around in his chair and looks back over his shoulder, as if someone has just called his name.
Anthony van Dyck painted this portrait of Lucas van Uffel in oil on canvas around 1622, during his years in Italy.
A pair of compasses, a large globe and a carved stone head tell us what kind of things this man cared about.

Reading the picture

5 places to look closer

Tap a number on the painting to jump to its note, or a close-up to see that spot in the whole picture.

Zoom in on the face first. His brow is slightly creased and his eyebrows lifted, and only his head has turned toward us. He has a mustache and a short beard on his chin. A white lace collar falls at an angle over the black cloak.
Look at the hand resting on the table. Between his thumb and fingers he holds a pair of metal compasses. Both points touch the red cloth on the table. It looks like the moment he glanced up from measuring something.
Move to the back of the table on the right. A big globe sits on a stand, and on its surface you can make out a figure in red. To its left, a carved head of a bearded old man peers out of the shadows. In portraits of this time, globes and compasses often signaled learning and an interest in the wider world.
Zoom into the end of the sleeve on the arm reaching down toward the chair. A white cuff sticks out from the black clothing. Van Dyck made it with a few quick, scratchy strokes of white paint. Up close they are just brushmarks, but step back and they turn into stiff, crisp linen.
At the end of that arm, look at the hand on the chair. His long fingers press lightly on its edge. It looks as if he is about to push himself up. Van Dyck became known for painting hands like these, long and elegant.

When it was painted

In the autumn of 1621, a twenty-two-year-old Van Dyck left Antwerp for Italy. He had become a master in the Antwerp painters' guild before he turned nineteen, and he had worked in Rubens's studio. Just the winter before, he had spent a few months in London working for King James I.

He stayed in Italy until 1627. His base was the port city of Genoa, where the Flemish painter brothers Lucas and Cornelis de Wael took him in. He traveled to Rome, Venice and as far as Sicily, copying old masters into a small sketchbook. That sketchbook is now in the British Museum in London.

He painted this portrait around 1622, in Venice. There he studied the paintings of Titian closely. The sitter, Lucas van Uffel, was a wealthy Flemish merchant who had settled in Venice, and he collected paintings. The Met describes the portrait as showing him as a learned gentleman with many interests.

Van Uffel died in 1637, and in 1639 his collection was sold at auction in Amsterdam. Among the pictures was Raphael's portrait of Baldassare Castiglione. Rembrandt came to the sale, made a quick sketch of the Raphael, and noted down the price it fetched. Many scholars see the pose of that portrait in the self-portrait Rembrandt painted the following year.

Van Dyck's portrait turns up again around 1730 in the collection of the landgraves of Hesse-Kassel in Germany. It came to the Metropolitan Museum in 1913 through the bequest of Benjamin Altman, a New York department store owner. Now look at the picture again. A man who once owned a Raphael twists around between his globe and his compasses to look back at us. That glance has a story behind it.

The painter

Anthony van Dyck

1599–1641

All paintings by Anthony van Dyck →

More by the same painter

Queen Henrietta Maria1636

Self-Portrait, from "The Iconography"ca. 1640

Questions to think about

Look for itIn this dark painting, how many spots of bright white can you find?
Why?Why do you think Van Dyck showed this man twisting around to look back, instead of sitting straight and facing us?
What about you?If someone painted your portrait today, which three objects would you want beside you to show who you are?

Same period