his favorite artist. He was
assigned a city and a country residence, and within three months of the
time of his arrival at court the king knighted him, and gave him a gold
chain with a portrait of himself set in brilliants suspended from it.
Charles was in the habit of passing much time with Vandyck, and the studio
of the court-painter became one of the most fashionable resorts in London
for the courtiers and other distinguished people.

Vandyck kept up a fine establishment, and lived luxuriously. He had a
habit of asking his sitters to dinner; thus he could study their faces and
retouch their portraits with the more natural expressions of their
conversational hours, for it is rare that one is natural when posing
before an artist who is painting one's portrait. But in the midst of his
busy life as an artist and his gay life as a man of the world, Sir Anthony
did not forget the needs of his brother painters. There was at that time
no club or place where artists met socially to consult and aid each other
in their profession. Vandyck founded the Club of St. Luke; it met at the
Rose Tavern, and all painters of talent living in London joined it. One of
the more personal acts of kindness which are related of him is that having
seen by chance a picture which was painted by William Dobson, Vandyck
sought him out, found him in a poor garret, instructed him with great
care, introduced him to the king, and, in short, by his kind offices so
prepared the way that Dobson was made sergeant-painter to the king after
Vandyck's death, and won the title of "the English Tintoretto."

The portraits which Vandyck executed in England are numbered by hundreds
and are magnificent pictures. Those of the royal family are very numerous
and important, and there is scarcely a man or woman belonging to this
period whose name has come down to us in history or literature, whose
portrait he did not paint. He also made thirteen portraits of himself
which are still preserved. He was very skilful in painting horses and
dogs, and frequently introduced these animals into his portrait groups.

There is a large collection of the pictures of Vandyck at Windsor Castle;
there are many also in the private galleries of Great Britain and other
countries, besides a goodly number in the public galleries of Europe. He
executed at least thirty-six portraits of Charles I., as many as
twenty-five of Queen Henrietta Maria, and he also painted several groups
of the childre