21 February 2018
George Gage with two attendants by Anthony van Dyck
IDENTIFICATION AND PROVENANCE
By Hilary Maddicott (As published in the British Art Journal, Vol. XVIII, No. 2, Autumn 2017)
Anthony Van Dyck’s portrait in the National Gallery, London, catalogued as showing George Gage with two attendants, has been acclaimed as an ‘ambitious and innovative’ production of his early years (Pl 3).1 In this unusual ‘conversation piece’, displaying the lively interaction of three figures, Van Dyck portrays the principal subject of the paintings: a youngish man, wrapped in a stylish black cloak, in a pose conveying the innate grace, but also the skilfully-crafted nonchalance, or sprezzatura, of a courtier.