These two spare yet lively prints are part of a core group of etched portraits that laid the groundwork for a larger series—first published in the 1630s and later called the Iconographie—in which the Flemish artist Anthony van Dyck included himself and fellow artists alongside military figures, rulers, and scholars in a collection of famous individuals. For the series, Van Dyck also developed a printed portrait of his peer Frans Snyders, a painter who specialized in animals and still lifes, based on his painted portrait of Snyders, which you can see in an adjacent gallery.

The etching on the left is a self-portrait. In it, Van Dyck turns to appraise the viewer, eyebrows slightly raised. Small dots, or stippling, as well as hatched lines build the face’s volume. Only one thin line for the collar suggests the artist’s body below. In the etching on the right, a portrait of the painter Pieter Brueghel the Younger, the curling lines of the beard flow into the spiraling lines that shape the intricate ruff. These details show off the fluidity of etching made possible by a chemical process for incising the plate, with the artist only needing to draw lines into a waxy ground on the plate’s surface. Once again, the body and surroundings are only loosely suggested. Pieter Brueghel the Younger is best known for continuing his famous father’s legacy through producing faithful workshop copies of well-known compositions; Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s small grisaille painting, the Three Soldiers, is on view in a nearby gallery.