Master Copy of Van Dyck, detail from Portrait of Cornelius van der Geest 1620

This portrait was made when prosperous merchant Cornelis van der Geest was 65 and one of the most prominent private art collectors in and beyond the Netherlands. The painter Anthony van Dyck was all of 21, so this commision was particularly important in his swift trajectory to becoming one of the best known portraiturists in Europe.  Antwerp’s Rubenshuis (“Ruben’s House”) has Willem van Haecht‘s incredibly busy painting of the home Gallery of Cornelius van der Geest 1628 containing at least fifty pieces of art, Spanish royal visitors, the collector and at least thirty of his closest friends (including van Dyck), family and servants, all stuffed into a painting not much over a square metre in size.