Anthony van Dyck, Charity
ca 1627-28Paintings sorted by Historical period | Painter | Subject matter | Pigments used
Overview
Medium: Oil
Support: Canvas
Size: 148.2 x 107.5 cm
Art period: Baroque
Van Dyck painted Charity in Antwerp after his return from Italy. The influence of Italian painters such as Titian and Guido Reni is clearly perceivable.
The pigment analysis helps to better understand Van Dyck’s intricate painting technique. The best example is the red-brown drapery painted with a whole array of different pigments such as carmine cochineal, yellow lake, indigo, charcoal black, Vandyke brown, and vermilion.
Pigments
Pigment Analysis
This pigment analysis is based on the work of the scientists at the National Gallery London (1). The scientists employed x-ray radiography (XRR), energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDX), and x-ray diffraction (XRD) to gain insights into the inner layers of the painting and to identify the pigments.
1 Red-brown drapery: carmine cochineal lake and yellow lake. A mixture of a yellow lake with charcoal black was found in the brown-coloured areas. There are also areas glazed with Vandyke brown. The lightest areas are underpainted with lead white tinted with a little vermilion and overpainted with thin red and yellow glazes.
2 Chastity’s blue swathe: indigo.
3 Chastity’s blue drapery: natural ultramarine underpainted with a layer of indigo. The shadows are painted in pure indigo.
4 The dark panel in the background: dark glazes consisting of Vandyke brown.
5 Blue areas in the sky: smalt mixed with lead white.
6 The greenish-brown curtain on the right side: dark glazes consisting of charcoal black, yellow lake, and a small quantity of yellow ochre.
References
(1) Ashok Roy, The National Gallery’s Van Dycks: Technique and Development, National Gallery Technical Bulletin, Volume 20, 1999, pp. 63-66. Available as pdf.
Pigments Used in This Painting
Resources
See the collection of online and offline resources such as books, articles, videos, and websites on Anthony van Dyck in the section ‘Resources on Painters‘
