ANTHONY VAN DYCK (1599--1641), a native of Antwerp, after a brief and unsatisfactory visit to England, returned here and was created Court Painter in 1632. Charles I. knighted him in 1632. His influence affected the portrait painters who lived a century after him, and survived till the advent of Reynolds. The best of Van Dyck's pictures are in the possession of the Crown and private collectors in England. There is one famous _Portrait of Charles I._ in the Louvre, and another in the Hermitage at St. Petersburg. The _Three Children of Charles I._ is among his pictures in Windsor Castle. In the National Gallery the best specimen of Van Dyck's art is the _Emperor Theodosius and St. Ambrose_, No. 50. The _Gevartius_, No. 52, is probably by Rubens. There are magnificent portraits by Van Dyck in many private galleries.
GERARD VAN HONTHORST (1590--1656), a native of Utrecht, passed some years in England, painting portraits for Charles I. and his courtiers, and giving lessons to his daughter Elizabeth, afterwards Queen of Bohemia.
WILLIAM DOBSON (1610--1646), a dwarf, was apprenticed to Sir Robert Peake, an obscure painter and picture dealer, and learnt to copy Van Dyck so accurately, that he attracted the notice of the great master, who introduced him to the King. He became, after his patron's death, Serjeant-Painter, and Groom of the Privy Chamber. His career, like himself, was brief. When the Civil War broke out, Dobson was a prisoner for debt, and he died three years before the execution of his royal master. His portraits are often mistaken for those of Van Dyck. At Hampton Court is a fine picture of the painter himself with his wife. The _Beheading of St. John the Baptist_, which resembles a Honthorst, is at Wilton House; and a portrait of _Cleveland_, the poet, is in the Ellesmere collection. Several of Dobson's portraits have been exhibited in the National Portrait Exhibition, and in the collections of works by the "Old Masters" at Burlington House.
[Illustration: THE COUNTESS OF DEVONSHIRE. _By_ VAN DYCK. _From the Engraving by P. Lombart._]
GEORGE JAMESONE (1586--1644), the son of an Aberdeen architect, is styled by Cunningham "the Scottish Van Dyck." He studied abroad under Rubens, in the company of Van Dyck, and in 1628 commenced a prosperous career in Scotland. He painted the portrait of Charles I., in 1633, when the King visited that country. Jamesone also painted historic pictures, landscapes, and subjects from the Bible. During the contest of the King with his Parliament, the arts could not but languish. Some of the great collectors fled to the Continent, where more than one of them existed by the sale of portable works of art, such as medals. The Parliament ordered the furniture of the royal palaces and the contents of the picture galleries to be sold by auction, and the proceeds to be applied to the expenses of the war in Ireland and the North. By an order of the House of Commons, 1645, all such pictures and statues at York House as bore the image of the Virgin Mary were to be forthwith destroyed as gendering superstition. Although art, as represented in England at this time, had been devoted to any but religious purposes--and many of its manifestations were grossly indecent and infamous, or, at best, shocking to unaccustomed eyes--these orders were not obeyed universally. Many pictures were bought by foreign princes, some by Cavaliers, others by the Puritans, among whom Colonel Hutchinson was an extensive purchaser. Cromwell, on becoming Protector, stopped all the sales of royal paintings and property. To him we owe the preservation of Raphael's cartoons. They were valued by the Commissioners at £300 and ordered to be sold, but Cromwell stopped the sale. In the reign of Charles II., these cartoons would have been lost to England; the King had offered to sell them to Barillon, minister of Louis XIV., and it was only by Lord Danby's means that the sale was prevented. Cromwell employed as his portrait painter--