Portrait of Lucas Vosterman, the Elder

Lucas Vosterman (c. 1595-1675), an engraver by profession, was a personal friend of the painter, for whom he made a series of etchings of portraits of illustrious men, drawn or painted by Van Dyck, for the publication of the famous collection of portrait prints Iconography.

Probably painted immediately after Vosterman’s return to Antwerp, in 1630, after some time spent in England, the portrait not only gives us an image of the engraver with the veil of melancholy that characterised his whole existence, but, by also affording him a rather haughty expression, Van Dyck fully encapsulates the artist’s new social status.