Death becomes her: Van Dyck's Venetia, Lady Digby, on Her Deathbed

When his beloved wife the famous beauty Venetia Stanley died suddenly in her sleep in 1633, Sir Kenelm Digby called in Van Dyck to portray her. Van Dyck shows her as if she might be sleeping. Only her deathly pallor gives away the truth. At this time Van Dyck, an artist from Antwerp, was establishing himself as the glamorous portraitist of the English court and aristocracy. Here he captures the tragic pervasiveness of sickness and death in a pre-medical world. Illustration: Matthew Hollow/By permission of the Trustees of Dulwich Picture Gallery