Magistrates of Brussels

Magistrates of Brussels was a 1634-5 oil painting by Anthony van Dyck. It was destroyed in the French bombardment of Brussels in 1695. Its composition is known from a grisaille sketch in the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, which Van Dyck prepared to show how he planned to lay out the work.

Grisaille sketch of Magistrates of Brussels, in the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris

Van Dyck was paid 2,400 florins for the painting in 1628, intended for Brussels Town Hall. It was painted in a period when Van Dyck had returned to the Netherlands. The work was completed in 1634-5 and included portraits of seven magistrates in council, around a statue representing Justice.

At least four sketches of magistrates' heads for the same work are known to exist, each with a distinctive pink background. Two are in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. A third was in the collection of the Saint Louis Art Museum from 1952 to 2010, and later sold to a private collector. A fourth (Magistrate of Brussels) was rediscovered in England in 2013. A further work in the Royal Collection may also be from the same series.