Portrait of Sir Robert Shirley

The Portrait of Sir Robert Shirley is a painting by Sir Anthony van Dyck, a Flemish Baroque artist. It is a portrait of Sir Robert Shirley (c. 1581 – 13 July 1628), the ambassador to the Safavid Shah Abbas I (<abbr>r.</abbr> 1588–1629), beginning in 1608. This painting was completed in Rome in 1622 and is one of a pair; its pendant depicts Shirley's wife, Lady Teresa Sampsonia, a Circassian noblewoman. It is notable for the rich Persian dress worn by Shirley. Both of these paintings are now in the collection of Petworth House, in West Sussex.

See also

• List of paintings by Anthony van Dyck

Further reading

• Gary Schwartz, "The Shirleys and the Shah: Persia as the Stakes in a Rogues's Gambit," The fascination of Persia: The Persian-European dialogue in seventeenth-century art & contemporary art of Teheran, ed. Axel Langer, Zürich (Museum Rietberg) and Verlag Scheiddeger & Spiess 2013, pp.&nbsp;78–99, 294–97, 300–20.

References