so jealous of his pupil that he endeavoured to persuade him to abandon historical painting and devote the whole of his time to portraiture. Such statements are not only in opposition to all that we know of Rubens' character, but there is the further evidence that when he finally parted from Van Dyck they were on the very best of terms. Indeed, Rubens went so far as to make him a present of one of his finest horses for the purpose of his journey in Italy, whilst Van Dyck left with his master a portrait of Rubens' wife as a souvenir.

He further retained the services of Van Dyck as his assistant, which he would not have done had any jealousy existed between them. It was probably the pressure of commissions, which flowed in upon him in innumerable quantities, that induced him to take this step. It was quite impossible for the master himself to accomplish all the work he undertook. Outside Italy he was the first master to employ his school as a sort of manufactory on a large scale. So well did he train his assistants that he had only to make the sketch himself, and to superintend its painting, for a large work to be turned out in an incredibly short time. As Van Dyck was his most capable assistant, he would certainly employ him upon the important parts, and as it has already been pointed out that it is difficult to differentiate between the works of the two men at this time, it would be still more difficult to decide definitely what hand Van Dyck had in the large number of religious and historical pictures that were being sent out under Rubens' name at this time.

During this period, however, Van Dyck had acquired a reputation of his own. He had been elected a master of the Antwerp Corporation of painters in 1618, that is, whilst still in his twentieth year.

II

THE JOURNEY TO ITALY

It was the habit of most Northern artists at that time to make a journey in Italy. The renown of the works created during the preceding two centuries by the Italian Renaissance had spread all over Europe, and no young artist considered his education complete without having spent a few years in studying them. Moreover, they found that patrons patronised them better if they had been through this Italian training. These ideas were rather dictated by the prevailing fashion than by any solid good to be derived by the artist who underwent it. We have innumerable examples of Dutchmen and Flemings whose natural genius became perverted upon Italian soil. Nicholas Berchem and Karl Dujardin were striking examples of the sad results which frequently accrued from thus transplanting themselves into a country with which their temperament had nothing in common. It is probable that had Karl Dujardin remained in Holland, the world would have been enriched by a landscape painter of the first order, for he had gifts far above even the average painter of his time. But immediately on reaching Italy he succumbed to the influences surrounding him, and endeavoured to get rid as far as possible of his early training, and to see things and render them in the Italian way. The result was, that whilst he never threw off the Dutch character of his scenes and figures, he enveloped them with a conventional atmosphere as monotonous as it is untrue.

We have already seen the results the Italian journey had upon Rubens. There was no inducement for Van Dyck, comparing, as he would be able to, his master's pictures painted before his journey to Italy and those which he executed afterwards, to undertake the same trouble. It is rather to be thought that he was decided to see the artistic Mecca for himself, by the glowing accounts of its treasures that he heard from time to time from Rubens' own lips. For the latter, small as had been the influence of the great Italian masters upon his work, was nevertheless of a disposition peculiarly adapted for keenly appreciating merit whenever it was brought under his notice. We can quite imagine that during those early days in Antwerp his pupils whilst at work would hear innumerable accounts of the beauties of this or that picture, and the more enthusiastic of them would consequently only be the more eager to judge of its beauties for themselves. During the execution of the large canvasses that were turned out in such quantities from the studio, Rubens doubtlessly prefaced alterations he made by referring to many a master's method, and recounted how the masterpieces upon which his comments were framed had been brought to completion.

During the latter portion of the time Van Dyck stopped with Rubens he was only acting as his assistant, and consequently would be free to leave when he liked. He would probably be quite aware that his technique was the equal of his master's, and would realise that he had received all the tuition he possibly could in his present situation. Ambitious as he was, there is no doubt that he yearned for an opportunity to learn for himself the message the great masters had to impart to him. Whilst we can quite imagine that Rubens would be sorry to part with so capable an assistant, there was not any evidence that he did not do everything in his power to assist him to carry out his project.

In 1623—when he was but twenty-four years of age—Van Dyck left Antwerp on his journey southward. He appears not to have got any further than a village near Brussels, where he succumbed to the attractions of a certain young lady named Annah van Ophem. At her instigation he painted two pictures for the parish church there. In one, representing St. Martin sharing his cloak with a beggar, he took himself as a model for the saint. The parish authorities being, it is said, of a mercenary turn of mind, had it valued, and, hearing that it was worth 4000 florins, sold it to a M. Hoët. The people of the village, however, hearing of the sale, determined to prevent the removal of the picture at all costs, and when the purchaser arrived he found not only the peasants, but their wives and children, armed, and was obliged to escape ignominiously through the priest's garden and return to Brussels without his prize. Whilst still residing at the village, Van Dyck painted the portrait of Annah van Ophem, surrounded with the dogs belonging to the Infanta Isabella, of which either she or her father had charge, and a picture of the Holy Family, in which she figured as the principal personage.

PLATE IV.—PORTRAIT OF VAN DYCK (OR THE ARTIST)

(In Lord Spencer's Collection, Althorp)

One of the most striking portraits of the artist. Painted at a fairly late date in his career, it shows the painter prosperous and rich and by no means ill pleased with his lot in the world. Full of life and gaiety, his joyous face gives us a good idea of the gratification he found in life almost to the end. Indeed, a deal of the fascination of his art arises from his approaching his subjects in this happy frame of mind.

Plate IV.

Rubens, hearing of the prolonged sojourn of his pupil at Saveltheim, arrived one day upon the scene, and finally induced Van Dyck to tear himself from his mistress and continue his journey to Italy.

The great object of his visit was to study the Venetian masters, and accordingly he repaired forthwith to the City of the Lagoons. We can picture him standing for the first time before those wonderful portraits of Titian and Tintoretto, Palma-Vecchio and Moroni, about which he had heard so much in his student days in Antwerp. That he was not disappointed is evidenced by the fact that almost immediately a change is observable in his method. He cast aside as speedily as possible the silveriness and coolness which had characterised his palette when