by : Sir Anthony van Dyck / location : The Royal Collection, Windsor Castle, Windsor. UK / Year : 1635 / Oil on Canvas

Original size: 85.1 x 100.7 cms

This triple portrait of Charles I was sent to Rome for Bernini to model a bust on.

Van Dyck's great success compelled him to maintain a large workshop in London, a studio which was to become "virtually a production line for portraits". According to a visitor to his studio he usually only made a drawing on paper, which was then enlarged onto canvas by an assistant; he then painted the head himself.

The clothes were left at the studio and often sent out to specialists. In his last years these studio collaborations accounted for some decline in the quality of work. In addition many copies untouched by him, or virtually so, were produced by the workshop, as well as by professional copyists and later painters; the number of paintings ascribed to him had by the 19th century become huge, as with Rembrandt, Titian and others.

However most of his assistants and copyists could not approach the refinement of his manner, so compared to many masters consensus among art historians on attributions to him is usually relatively easy to reach, and museum labelling is now mostly updated (country house attributions may be more dubious in some cases).

The relatively few names of his assistants that are known are Flemish; he probably preferred to use trained Flemings, as no English equivalent training yet existed. His enormous influence of English art does not come from a tradition handed down through his pupils; in fact it is not possible to document a connection to his studio for any English painter of any significance.