James Stuart Duke of Lennox and Richmond

James Stuart stands with one hand on his hip and the other resting on a greyhound's head. His gaze meets ours; the dog's turns towards him. Between these two directions of attention, Anthony van Dyck builds a portrait that feels both ceremonious and companionable. The great black cloak gives Stuart breadth, while the animal beside him introduces a living, responsive presence into the imposing full-length design.

The young duke and his titles

Stuart became fourth Duke of Lennox in 1624 and first Duke of Richmond in 1641. The latter title therefore postdates this portrait. ^[2] The familiar combined title identifies the sitter across his life; it does not date the canvas to the year of his second dukedom.

Here, his appearance has a striking mixture of softness and firmness. Fair curls frame a youthful face above a collar whose points spread across his shoulders. The long curl falling over the lace is the fashionable lovelock identified by the Met. ^[1] Its warm colour brings the eye down from the face into the pale collar, then towards the small jewel against the black clothes.

Stuart's eyes provide a steadier point within this succession of decorative details. His head turns enough to prevent the face becoming a flat, frontal emblem. The slight angle also brings one cheek into stronger light. There is little action to distract us from the act of being looked at. Even the hand on the hip serves that encounter: its spread fingers make the relaxed stance unusually legible against the dark clothing.

For the wider setting of such portraits, Van Dyck's years in England place this concentrated image of one courtier within his work for the royal circle.

How the full-length pose works

The background gives Stuart two very different companions. At the left, green fabric hangs in heavy, irregular folds; at the right, a broad architectural support rises almost without interruption. One side of the setting bends and gathers, while the other supplies a firm vertical. Stuart stands between them, his clothing borrowing something from each. The cloak falls with the weight of the curtain, but his upright body answers the architecture.

His silhouette is widest around the arms and upper legs, then contracts abruptly at the knees. Below the dark masses, the pale stockings expose the separate positions of his legs. One foot points more towards us and the other turns aside. These small divergences make the stance easier to imagine as a bodily arrangement. The polished image still contains a recognisable way of standing.

The black costume rewards a slower look. Its folds are visible through changes of sheen and tone, and the sleeve on the hip side swells out before descending into the cloak. Against this broad, dark surface, the uncovered hand appears almost delicate. The fingers do not grasp anything. Their open spacing makes the gesture seem easy, though it occupies a precise and conspicuous place in the design.

At the bottom, dog and man share the same strip of floor. The greyhound's narrow front legs extend lower in the image than Stuart's shoes, bringing the animal towards the viewer. Its body supplies a second upright shape, smaller and more irregular than the human figure. This companionship changes the scale of the portrait: we read the grand figure through the ordinary physical contact of a hand and a head.

The Order of the Garter

The star on the cloak, the lesser George jewel on the chest and the garter at the left knee identify Stuart's Order of the Garter insignia. ^[2] The Met suggests that the portrait may commemorate his receiving the honour in November 1633. ^[1] Liedtke's catalogue cautions that the insignia need not celebrate that particular investiture; they also indicate service to the sovereign. ^[2]

The star is the boldest of these signs. Its pale rays spread across a dark fold at the outer edge of the figure, where they can be recognised even before the costume's smaller details emerge. The jewel hangs closer to the centre. The two ornaments make us look both across the breadth of the cloak and back towards the chest.

Lower down, the knee decoration changes the rhythm again. After following the heavy fabric, we reach a bright, narrow area of stocking where a small badge becomes conspicuous. The honours are dispersed across the body. Looking at them requires us to take in the entire figure, from shoulder to knee, rather than treating the portrait as a face with an identifying accessory.

What the greyhound contributes

The Met connects the greyhound with loyalty and aristocratic hunting. ^[1] Those associations have a visible basis in the way the animal behaves within the picture. Its neck rises towards Stuart and its muzzle presses into the space below his hand. The contact seems light. His fingers descend over the head without interrupting his outward-facing pose.

The dog does more looking than its master does moving. Stuart addresses us while the animal concentrates on him, creating a small circuit of attention that we can observe without entering. Its upward tilt also carries our eye towards the hand and waist. The long front legs begin a rising movement that continues through the neck, the muzzle and the duke's arm.

Colour makes the animal particularly easy to follow. The warm brown coat stands out beside the black costume, and a pale patch on the chest introduces another light shape below the lace collar. Its folded hindquarters give the lower left corner a rounded, compact form. Above them, the slim neck and pointed muzzle open that compact shape upwards.

A story that the dog saved Stuart's life remains unconfirmed, as Liedtke explicitly notes. ^[2] The visible exchange is compelling without a rescue narrative. Van Dyck gives the animal enough physical specificity to sustain our interest in its posture, while placing its attention entirely at the service of the human figure.

A portrait prepared in drawings

Two surviving sheets in the British Museum help explain this appearance of ease. The Frick's exhibition entries date both to about 1633 and identify black chalk with white heightening on light brown paper. ^{[3] [4]} They preserve separate preparations for the standing man and his dog.

The figure sheet chiefly establishes Stuart's pose and costume. The Frick suggests that its specific face and dress indicate work in the sitter's presence; a more detailed oil study of the head is a possibility, not an identified surviving object. ^[3] This distinction matters when imagining the portrait taking shape. A drawing can resolve how a body stands and how clothing hangs without settling every feature that will appear in the painting.

The greyhound sheet records two positions. According to the Frick's account, the dog shifted its legs, and Van Dyck combined the body in the left study with the head at the right in the finished portrait. ^[4] What looks like a single quiet moment could therefore bring together observations made at different moments.

That combination helps us appreciate the finished animal's coherence. Its seated body anchors it to the floor, while its lifted head connects it to Stuart's hand. These two tasks fit so naturally together that there is little reason to notice their separate preparation when looking only at the painting. The drawings reveal the choices behind the contact. They also give a particular example of how Van Dyck's portrait drawings could guide the arrangement of a larger work.

Titian, other portraits and later copies

Liedtke relates the design to Titian 's Charles V with a Hound , citing the stance, the other arm, the green curtain and the responding dog. ^[2] The connection places a seemingly private gesture within a tradition of distinguished full-length portraiture.

The Kenwood hunter and the Louvre's Stuart as Paris are separate portraits. Some copies of the Met composition add a coronet and Richmond inscription. ^[2] Such additions show how the same likeness could acquire a more explicit declaration of rank. In the Met painting, the uncluttered floor leaves the feet and paws clearly visible. The viewer can follow their spacing without an additional heraldic object competing for attention.

The canvas passed from the Methuen family to Marquand in 1886; his gift brought it to the Met in 1889. ^{[1] [2]}