Jan Mildert

Anthony van Dyck's portrait of "Jan Mildert" is a charcoal drawing with pale gray wash on ivory wove paper, part of the Iconography series. Jan van Mildert (1588–1638) was a Flemish sculptor active in Antwerp, part of the community of artists that van Dyck documented in his great portrait project. The charcoal technique with gray wash is among van Dyck's most effective combinations for portraiture: the charcoal provides solid modeling of the features, while the wash adds an atmospheric quality that gives the portrait depth and presence. Van Mildert appears as a serious, thoughtful figure, the sculptor's features rendered with the attention to three-dimensional form that might be expected from the portraitist of a sculptor—van Dyck seems to emphasize the solidity and structure of the head, as if acknowledging his sitter's professional concern with volume and mass in three dimensions.

Van Dyck's inclusion of sculptors in the Iconography alongside painters reflects the integrated nature of the visual arts in 17th-century Antwerp, where the boundaries between different artistic specializations were fluid and collaborative.

This portrait of a sculptor shows van Dyck adapting his approach to the subject, the solid modeling of the head perhaps acknowledging the sitter's professional identity as a maker of three-dimensional forms.