Portrait of Sir Thomas Chaloner. Copy of a detail

Unknown artist after Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641)

19th c. Oil on canvas

Johannes Mikkel acquired the painting from a person associated with the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, and considered it to be an original by the 17th-century Flemish master Anthony van Dyck: it was believed to be a preparatory painting for the official portrait of the British statesman Sir Thomas Chaloner.

However, the painting was not made Anthony van Dyck, the great master and pioneer of the genre of festive portraiture of the nobility; it is a rather skilful copy of the painting at the State Hermitage, bought for the collection of the Russian Empress Catherine II in 1779.

The copy at the Mikkel Museum was made by an unknown painter after the portrait displayed at the Hermitage in the 19th century; it covers only the upper part of the original full portrait. Material analyses have shown that the painting was made at a later period: synthetic paints have been used, and a layer of varnish tinted with a yellowish earth pigment has been added to the painting. This method was often used in the copy-making practices of the 19th century, with the aim of making a copy look more like an old painting.