Sir Anthony van Dyck and Rembrandt van Rijn both hailed from the Low Countries and worked at a similar time, but they were different characters: van Dyck a courtier, and Rembrandt a professional serving the merchants of Amsterdam.

In some ways the effects of their paintings are similar. The immediacy of van Dyck’s and Rembrandt’s compositions is clear: life-size figures appear to enter our space, bridging the painted and the real world. Where they differ dramatically is the way in which they bring their figures to life; whereas Rembrandt overloads us with sculptural information, van Dyck leaves us to fill in the gaps.