24 April – 28 June 2013: Faces of Distinction Anthony van Dyck and his portraits of an illustrious circle Art at Noon
Anthony van Dyck (1599 - 1641) Self-portrait. 1630 - 1640 Accomplished by Jacobus Neeffs (1610 - nach 1660) Etching and engraving Collection of Prints and Drawings ETH Zurich Anthony van Dyck (1599 - 1641) Jan Brueghel the Elder. Around 1630 – 1633 Etching and engraving Collection of Prints and Drawings ETH Zurich		The Netherlandish artist Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641) has secured a place in the history of art not only for his magnificent and sometimes larger than life portraits, but also for his series of prints known as the Iconographia, incorporating more than a hundred portraits of the most illustrious figures of his day. The exhibition Faces of Distinction. Anthony van Dyck and his portraits of an illustrious circle, mounted by the Department of Prints and Drawings of the ETH Zürich in collaboration with guest curator Carme Rodríguez-Pàmias, presents these masterpieces of portraiture to the Swiss public on a hitherto unprecendented scale. Thanks to the generous bequest of the Zurich banker Heinrich Schulthess-von Meiss (1813-1898) the Department of Prints and Drawings of the ETH Zürich holds a particularly wide range of works from van Dyck‘s Iconographia. These include several remarkably rare first prints as well as works from the very first edition of the Iconographia published by Marten van den Enden, with whom van Dyck worked closely right up to his death in 1641. Following his apprenticeship under the guidance of Antwerp painter Henrik van Balen (1575-1632), the highly gifted young van Dyck, having been granted the title of master artist at the tender age of 19, entered the studio of the leading Flemish painter of the day, Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640). This assured him of a prestigious clientele right from the start. The portraits in the Iconographia bear witness to the illustrious circles in which the young master artist moved. Alongside monarchs, princes, statesmen, scholars and philosophers, there are also portraits of artists particularly admired by van Dyck. Though many of the portraits were etched after drawings or paintings by van Dyck, some of the portraits were etched by him personally. This spontaneous and unprepossessing approach resulted in some remarkably rare avant-la-lettre prints. The beginnings of the Iconographia and the development of the cycle are shrouded in mystery. We can only begin to surmise what may have prompted him to launch such an ambitious project in the time around 1632. Van Dyck, who was thoroughly familiar with the tradition of artists‘ biographies and portrait books, may well have recognised the opportunities that the printed medium offered as a means of successfully marketing his celebrated talent for portraiture. Opening: Tuesday, 23 April 2013, 6 pm Contact person: Konstanze Forst-Battaglia (> e-mail)
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