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Sir Anthony van Dyck Flemish, 1599 - 1641 Philip, Lord Wharton, 1632 oil on canvas, 133 x 106 cm (52 3/8 x 41 3/4 in.) Andrew W. Mellon Collection 1937.1.50 |
Object 12 of 15
Philip, Lord Wharton was one of Van Dyck's first private commissions after he arrived in London in March 1632. Casually bracing a shepherd's crook in his arm, the nineteen-year-old aristocrat engages in a pastoral masquerade. The relationship of the handsome youth to the Arcadian landscape suggests a philosophical attitude that pervaded Charles I's court. A classical concept of ideal love had come to encompass, through Christian interpretation, the idea that physical beauty was a means of spiritually approaching God.
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