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Updated: May 15, 2025
Great was his relief when he returned to Antwerp to hear that the pretty Anna Van Ophem of Saventhem had been married three years before to a worthy wine merchant of Brussels, and was now the proud mother of two handsome boys. Great was the welcome that Van Dyck received at Antwerp; and in it all the gracious Rubens joined.
Rubens waited expectantly, thinking to have news from his brilliant pupil in Italy. He waited a month. Two months passed, and still no word. After three months a citizen reported that the day before he had seen Van Dyck, aided by a young woman, putting up a picture in the village church at Saventhem. Rubens saddled his horse and rode down there.
In 1806, when the French invaders tried to carry it away, the people again prevented it, and they were forced to call more soldiers from Brussels before they succeeded in taking it. The St. Martin was placed in the Gallery of the Louvre, at Paris, but was restored to Saventhem in 1815. About 1850 a rich American offered twenty thousand dollars for the picture, no matter who brought it to him.
"With Italy with Italy I can win all!" he kept repeating to himself as he turned his horse's head to the South. The first day's ride took the artistic traveler to the little village of Saventhem, five miles from Brussels. Here he turned aside long enough to say good-by to a fair young lady, Anna Van Ophem by name, whom he had met a few months before at Antwerp.
The pictures that Van Dyck then painted are there now in the same old ivy-grown, moss-covered church at Saventhem. The next time you are in Brussels it will pay you to walk out and see them. One of the pictures is called "Saint Martin Dividing His Cloak With Two Beggars." The Saint is modestly represented by Van Dyck himself, seated astride the beautiful horse that Rubens gave him.
Martin's Church at Saventhem, near Brussels, but although one is inclined to believe this story because it was quite the sort of thing which might be expected of Van Dyck, even this is not true, because the painting was done long after the artist had made his Italian journey, and it was commissioned by a gentleman living at Saventhem, whose daughter Van Dyck undoubtedly liked pretty well; but he made the picture for money, not for love.
After three days at the charming old country-seat at Saventhem, Van Dyck called his servant and told him to take the shoes off of the saddle-horse, and turn it and the cart-horse loose in the pasture. He had decided to remain and paint a picture for the village church. And it was so done.
Van Dyck said he would think about it; and Rubens took a look at his old saddle-horse rolling in the pasture or wading knee-deep in clover, and rode back home. In a few days he sent Chevalier Nanni down to the country-seat at Saventhem, to tell Van Dyck that he was on his way to Italy and that Van Dyck had better accompany him. Van Dyck concluded to go.
As Vandyck was on his way from Antwerp to Brussels he halted at the village of Saventhem, where he fell in love with Anna van Ophem, and so stayed on in the lovely valley of Flanders, week after week, as if he had forgotten that Italy existed. Anna persuaded him to paint a picture for the village church, and he executed a Holy Family in which the Virgin was a portrait of Anna, and St.
He also suggested that Anthony Van Dyck could not afford to follow the example of his illustrious Roman namesake who went down into Egypt and found things there so softly luxurious that he forgot home, friends, country all! To remain at Saventhem would be death to his art he must have before him the example of the masters.
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