European Painting and Sculpture

ANTHONY VAN DYCK
(Flemish, 1599-1641)

Detail: Countess of Southampton (Rachel de Rovigny)
Oil on canvas
Museum Purchase, Satterwhite Fund 1971.18

A friend of the Countess of Southampton once described her as "very merry and very discreet, very handsome and very religious." Here, Anthony van Dyck seems to have captured something of her complex personality. The delicate painting of her face emphasizes her aristocratic refinement. Her soft, brown curls are set off by the red flower, the smoothness of her white skin, and the highlights on her pearl earring and necklace. This is in contrast to the looser brush work in her body and clothing.
Van Dyck's portraits were immensely popular with the European nobility of the seventeenth century. Much of this popularity came from his ability to produce a convincing likeness.

Originally, this canvas appeared to be completely painted. When conservators looked at infrared photographs of this painting, they discovered that van Dyck had actually left it unfinished. A pigment analysis performed on paint revealed that overpaint had been applied during a later period. Because the Museum wanted to restore the work to its original appearance, the conservators removed several layers of this overpainting-a painstaking procedure that took many months.