It was said that Rubens advised Van Dyck to devote himself to portraiture out of jealousy: but that is hardly in accordance with what we know of his generous nature. If the advice was given at all we may be sure that it was given in a friendly spirit. But there was something in the temperament of Van Dyck which peculiarly fitted him for the Court, apart from any question as to his excellence in any particular branch of his art, and it is evident that the personality of Rubens, and his connection with the rich and mighty of the earth, influenced him almost as much as did his art. How much he owed to Rubens, and how much Rubens owed to him in painting is a matter that is arguable. He had been several years with Van Balen before he entered the studio of Rubens, when eighteen years old, not as a pupil but as an assistant. Here he not only had the practical task of painting Rubens's compositions for him, in company with numerous others, but had also the advantage of studying the works of Titian and other of the great Italian masters in Rubens's famous collection. If the hand of Van Dyck is traceable in some of the pictures of Rubens at this period, so the spirit of Rubens is very obvious in those of Van Dyck. The chief thing to be remembered is that in these early days he was not painting portraits. His earliest works, in which the influence of Titian is perceptible as well as that of Rubens, are the _Christ bearing the Cross_, in S. Paul's at Antwerp, painted in 1618; the _S. Sebastian_ at Munich, and the _Christ Mocked_, at Berlin. The familiar portrait of _Cornelius van der Geest_ in the National Gallery, is one of his very earliest, probably before 1620. Again, on his first visit to Genoa, in 1621, on the advice of Rubens, his ambition was not to paint portraits, as on his second visit some years later, but to rival Rubens in the composition of great historical pieces. It was not until 1627, when he left behind him in Genoa the superb series of Balbi, Brignole-Sala, Cattaneo, and Lomellini portraits, and returned to Antwerp to undertake those such as the _Le Roys_ at Hertford House, or the _Beatrice de Cusance_ at Windsor, that he had really become a portrait painter. Even then, he was still determined not to yield to Rubens at Antwerp, and painted, amongst other subjects, the _Rinaldo and Armida_ for Charles I. It was only at the solicitation of George Geldorp, a schemer as well as a painter, that he consented at length, in 1632, to come to England; and it was only the welcome afforded to him by Charles that induced him to settle here.