An English aristocrat and soldier who lived at the court of King Charles I, Sir John Suckling was also a member of the Privy Council.

Educated at Cambridge and in Leiden and widely traveled, Sir John moved in the highest circles of English society, where he came to be known as a spendthrift, lothario, and gambler. A poet by passion, he also wrote plays, and in this portrait, he is dressed in a costume for the stage. This is one of a few portraits by Van Dyck set in an Arcadian scene. The pastoral costume and backdrop of this picture is particularly fitting for a poet. As the inscription “Shakespeare” on the small slip of paper peeking out of the book makes clear, the volume Sir John holds is the first folio edition of Shakespeare of 1623, which includes all but one of Shakespeare’s thirty-seven plays, published together for the first time. If you look closely, you can see that the folio is open to Hamlet.

The inscription on the boulder to the right of Suckling reads “ne te quaesiveris extra” (do not seek outside yourself)—a line from the Latin satirist Persius that asserts the pursuit of self-knowledge (and self-investigation) as the most important activity in life. As a consequence of the English Civil War, during which he sided with the Crown, Suckling’s life was radically transformed. He fled to Paris when he was charged with high treason in 1641. Suckling’s biographer, John Aubrey, chronicled that, age 33, “Suckling being come to the bottom of his funds, reflecting on the miserable and despicable condition, he was reduced to, he took poison.”