Born on this day in 1599 was the great Flemish painter Anthony Van Dyck, who spent part of his dazzling career in the court of Charles I, showing the English how portraiture should be done. The picture above is one of Van Dyck's quieter, more intimate works, a portrait of Cornelis van der Geest, an Antwerp spice merchant and art collector. It hangs in the National Gallery (one of the few London attractions that I miss).
To descend from the sublime to the ridiculous, today is also the birth date (in 1912) of the comic actor Wilfrid Brambell. I don't think I have anything to add to this piece from 2012.
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