Hondius, Willem (1597-1658) after Anthonis van Dyck (1599-1641): Guilielmus Hondius calcographus Hagae Comitis. (Portrait of Willem Hondius.)

Engraving. A beautiful impression of state 5/6, with initials GH för Gillis Hendricx, whose edition was published in the 1640s. Signed ”Guil. Hondius sculp. / Ant. van Dyck pinxit”. 24,4 x 16,8 cms (plate), narrow margins. Printed on laid paper. Very fine indeed. / Provenance: Bassenge.

Literature: Marie Mauquoy-Hendrickx: L'iconographie d'Antoine Van Dyck. Catalogue Raisonné (1991) no. 29. The copper-plates for the Iconography are kept in the Chalcographie, Musée du Louvre, since 1851. The present portrait is inv. no. 2335.

Hondius’ engraving of his own portrait for Van Dyck’s Iconography, after an original by the latter. No preparatory drawing for this portrait was known until very recently, when the drawing was discovered in a private collection. It was the last of these studies to remain in private hands and fetched 2,1 million dollars at Christie's (New York, Feb. 1st, 2024).

The ”Iconography” is one of the most celebrated series of portraits in the history of art. Van Dyck appears to have begun work on the prints in the late 1620s, with the first impressions of his own etchings appearing in the early 1630s. In 1632 he went to England as painter to King Charles I, and directed the project from there, working remotely with his publisher Martin van den Enden. A set of eighty portraits is believed to have been published before the artist’s death in 1641, but without a title page. The first known full edition is that published by Gillis Hendricx in the 1640s, from which the present impression originates. According to its title page, the GH edition comprised one hundred images, although the precise make-up of the images has long foxed collectors and art historians alike.