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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Anthony van Dyck
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(1599–1641, kt 1632) Flemish painter, whose stay in England for the last nine years of his life influenced the style of English portraiture for the next two centuries. Born in Antwerp, he was in his teens an assistant in the studio of *Rubens before firmly establishing his brilliance as a portraitist during five years in Genoa (1622–7). Settling in London in 1632, he was immediately made principal painter to Charles I and to the queen, Henrietta Maria.
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It is his images that now bring to mind the ill-fated royal pair and their Cavalier court, capturing a languorous elegance and barely concealed conviction of natural superiority. That easy arrogance was dented by the English Civil War, but Van Dyck's relatively informal full-length portraits, in sumptuous clothes and often in landscape settings, inspired later painters such as *Gainsborough. He was buried in St Paul's Cathedral, but his monument there was destroyed in the Great Fire.
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