Circle of Sir Peter Paul Rubens

With Martin Asscher, London, by 1941;

With van Diemen-Lilienfeld Galleries, New York, by 1949;

With Central Picture Galleries, New York;

From whom purchased by the father of the present collector, 1985.

T. Borenius, "Addenda to the Work of Van Dyck," in Burlington Magazine 79, no. 465 (December 1941), p. 200, reproduced pl. II.C IIC (as Van Dyck, Portrait of the Marques de Mirabel).

When the present work was published in 1941 by Tancred Borenius, the background and part of the costume were overpainted, turning the present work from a free head study or unfinished bust portrait into a more “finished” painting. In doing so, the inscriptions upper right were also covered, only being revealed in a subsequent restoration.

Borenius considered the present portrait from van Dyck’s second Antwerp period, and he identified the subject as Antonio Zúñiga y Dávila, Marques of Mirabel. This was based on the painting’s similarity to a print by Conraad Waumans which is inscribed with the name of that sitter. However, that engraving is half length and shows the sitter wearing a chain with the badge of the Order of Calatrava, as well as other differences in costume. In addition, while there is a general similarity of the physiognomy of the figure in the engraving to the present portrait, the gentleman here has a fuller face and different hairstyle, so a firm connection cannot be made. 

Despite its past connection to van Dyck, the painting betrays a closer association with Pieter Paul Rubens.