For a full hundred years we have no portraits of note; then there enters upon the scene one of the great princes of the art--VAN DYCK--whose etched portraits vie with those of Rembrandt in vitality, and surpass them in immediacy of appeal. Van Dyck had not that deep humanity, that profound reading of human character, which raises Rembrandt above all rivals; but upon the purely technical side, working within the truest traditions of etching, with due regard to its possibilities and its limitations, Van Dyck may claim precedence. His fifteen original portrait etchings (together with _Erasmus of Rotterdam_, after Holbein) undoubtedly belong to the period between his return from Italy to Antwerp, in 1626, and his settlement in London, in 1632. From the very first, Van Dyck seems to have been in possession of all his powers. His etchings show various modes of treatment, according to the character of the sitter, and it would be difficult to speak of the _development_ of his art, since, by the grace of God, he seems to have been a born etcher. Van Dyck’s _Portrait of Himself_ naturally interests us most, on account of its subject. So far as Van Dyck has seen fit to carry it, it is a perfect work of art, not the least remarkable feature being the splendid placing of the head upon the plate. Unfortunately, the first state is of such excessive rarity that the majority of print students can know this superb portrait only through reproductions (in which much of its delicacy is necessarily lost) or, in the later state, where the plate is finished with the graver by Jacob Neefs--a distressing piece of work, strangely enough, countenanced by Van Dyck himself; since in the British Museum there is a touched counter-proof of the first state, which proves that Van Dyck directed the elaboration of the plate, no doubt with the intention of using it as a title page to the _Iconography_, a series of a hundred engraved portraits of his friends and contemporaries. Of even subtler beauty is _Snyders_, unfortunately--like the portrait of Van Dyck himself--of the greatest rarity and also, like that plate, finished with the graver by Jacob Neefs. It is perfectly satisfying from every point of view, combining, as it does, the greatest freedom with absolute certainty of hand. The treatment of the face shows a thorough knowledge of all the technical resources of the art, the high lights having been “stopped out” exactly where needed, the etched dots and lines melting into a perfect harmony.