AMONG the numerous followers and pupils of Rubens there is none who has established sueh a claim to lasting renown as Anthony Van Dyck; he had not, as an artist, the power or the creative genius of his great master, but in the limited field of portrait-painting be was onc of the world"s greatest painters. He was born at Antwerp on the 22nd March 1599. His father Frans Van Oyck. was a well-to-do merchant. According to the traditional account of the old biographers, the father and his wife, Matia Cuypers or Kupers, had come to Antwerp from Henogenbosch, but this alleged immigration from HollancJ lacks all confirmation, On the contrary, the grandfather was already settled as a merchant at Antverp, and it is to be presumed that the proud Flemish merchant-city was the old home of the family. The name of Van Dyck occurs repeatedly in the list, of the Guild of St. Luke in the course of the sixteenth century, but no family connection can al present be Table of Contents LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS;...