The thirty known landscape drawings by Anthony Van Dyck (1599-1641) include some of the most beautiful sketches from nature to survive from the seventeenth century. Ranging from views of towns and woodland to studies of flowers and plants, they are imbued with a distinct atmosphere and drawn with astonishing freshness and delicacy. Van Dyck made many of them in England when he was working for King Charles I, and his occasional use of watercolour marks the beginning of the British tradition in this medium.

The thirty known landscape drawings by Anthony Van Dyck (1599-1641) include some of the most beautiful sketches from nature to survive from the seventeenth century. Ranging from views of towns and woodland to studies of flowers and plants, they are imbued with a distinct atmosphere and drawn with astonishing freshness and delicacy. Van Dyck made many of them in England when he was working for King Charles I, and his occasional use of watercolour marks the beginning of the British tradition in this medium.

Van Dyck’s landscape drawings have never before been examined other than as an adjunct to his work as a portrait and history painter. The catalogue illustrates them all, along with landscape drawings by his exact contemporaries from Italy, France and the Netherlands as well as his native Flanders, including Poussin, Claude, Rembrandt, Domenichino and Hollar. The catalogue explores the history of the practice of sketching from nature, and attempts for the first time to place Van Dyck’s drawings in the context of European landscape art.

MARTIN ROYALTON-KISCH is a curator in the Department of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum. He has published widely on the art of the Netherlands and his books include Adriaen van de Venne’s Album (i988) and Drawings by Rembrandt and his Circle in the British Museum (1992). With 60 colour and 80 black-and-white illustrations.

  Preface

  Outline Biography

  Introduction

I Drawings by or attributed to Van Dyck

II Drawings by Other Artists

  Bibliography and Abbreviations

  Exhibitions

  Index of Lenders

  Index of Artists

  General Index