Lucas van Uffel

Van Uffel was a wealthy Flemish merchant who lived in Venice, where Van Dyck probably painted this portrait early in his Italian period (1621–27). In another portrait (Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Brauschweig), Van Dyck shows the same sitter authoritatively posed before a view of ships sailing off a Mediterranean coast. Ours, by contrast, shows Van Uffel as a learned gentleman, with signs of his varied interests: dividers, a recorder, the bow of a viola da gamba, an antique head, a drawing, and a celestial globe.