LONDON.- The last self-portrait of Sir Anthony van Dyck will be displayed at the National Portrait Gallery alongside the self-portrait by another of Charles's court painters William Dobson (1611-1646), it was announced today (Monday 5 September 2016).

Reuniting two works in matching spectacular frames, which were in the same private collection for 300 years until the Van Dyck was acquired by the National Portrait Gallery in 2014, following a major public appeal with the Art Fund, this display provides a rare opportunity to see the paintings together and surrounded by other British self-portraits from the Gallery's outstanding Collection.

The portraits will form the centrepiece of Painting the Artist: Van Dyck and Early Self-portraiture in Britain (16 September 2016-8 January 2017.)

Both self-portraits were acquired by the art historian Richard Graham by the early eighteenth century. He is thought to have commissioned a frame for the Dobson portrait to match that of the Van Dyck.

The Dobson self-portrait comes to the Gallery from the National Trust's Osterley Park in south west London from where it is on long-term loan from a private collection.

Dobson is said to have copied Van Dyck's work as part of his training and, in this self-portrait, c.1645, his pose emulates the late self-portrait of Van Dyck. When Van Dyck died in 1641, William Dobson inherited his mantle as the leading painter of Charles I and his Royalist followers during the first English Civil War. His career was cut short however, when, after the surrender of Oxford in 1646, he returned to London and died there soon after in his house in St Martin's Lane, possibly due to his "somewhat loose and irregular" way of living.

The portraits will be seen alongside a selection from the Gallery's permanent collection, exploring the development of the self-portrait in Britain, a genre increasingly popular among artists in the Low Countries by the early-seventeenth century, but relatively uncommon in Britain before the Flemish Van Dyck moved to London in 1632.

Catharine MacLeod, Senior Curator, Seventeenth Century Portraits, National Portrait Gallery, London, says: "While it was undoubtedly influenced by Van Dyck's self-portrait and later framed to match it, this lively, dashing portrait by William Dobson shows his very distinctive style, characterised by broad and vigorous handling of paint. This display offers visitors a unique opportunity to see these works displayed in public together in the context of other early British self-portraits, of which the National Portrait Gallery has the most important collection anywhere in the world."

Among the highlights are the earliest oil self-portrait painted in Britain, a work produced by Gerlach Flicke (active 1545=died 1558) when "mysteriously" he was in prison in 1554, along with a gentleman pirate by the name of Henry Strangwish, shown beside him in a tiny diptych. There is also a self-portrait of the immensely successful miniature painter Isaac Oliver (c.1565-1617), who depicted himself as a well-dressed and prosperous Elizabethan gentleman with a magnificent ruff.

In his portrait, Sir Peter Lely (1618-1680), Van Dyck's official successor as Principal Painter to the King, shows himself as a connoisseur, holding a statuette that was probably a prop in his studio; but Lely's contemporary Mary Beale (1633-1699), a rare professional woman artist of the seventeenth century, explicitly and proudly refers to both her profession with a palette and unfinished canvas and to her role as a mother, as the canvas shows her two young sons.

Dr Nicholas Cullinan, Director of the National Portrait Gallery, London, says:˜This is a wonderful opportunity for our visitors to see the Van Dyck and Dobson self-portraits not only together (and in their distinctive matching frames) but also alongside so many other great works from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries - from the earliest oil self-portrait painted in Britain by Gerlach Flicke to important examples of the genre from Isaac Oliver and Peter Lely."

Painting the Artist: Van Dyck and Early Self-portraiture in Britain is the second of three displays to be held at the Gallery as part of the three-year tour of the newly acquired Van Dyck Self-portrait. In 2015, it was accompanied by the loan from the Prime Minister's official residence Chequers, of two Van Dyck portraits of Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria for the display Van Dyck: Transforming British Art. In 2017 a third display at the Gallery will feature the portrait in the context of work by a living artist.

Following its display at the National Portrait Gallery as part of Painting the Artist: Van Dyck and Early Self-portraiture in Britain, the portrait will be seen at the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, in 2017.

The tour, Van Dyck: A Masterpiece for Everyone, which started at Turner Contemporary, Margate (24 January - 10 May 2015) before continuing to Manchester Art Gallery in May 2015, Dulwich Picture Gallery between January and April 2016 and, until 4 September 2016, at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, is supported by the Art Fund and Heritage Lottery Fund.

Anthony van Dyck was born and trained in Antwerp, and went to work for the great painter Peter Paul Rubens while still in his teens. Quickly recognised as Rubens's most talented assistant, he soon set out to gain wider experience. Van Dyck briefly visited England in 1620-1, and then spent six years travelling and painting in Italy. Work in Antwerp and the Northern Netherlands followed this, and then in 1632, he returned to England.

Here, he was created Principal Painter to King Charles I, knighted and housed at the king's expense, and began producing paintings almost all portraits. Portrait painting in England in the early seventeenth century was similar to Elizabethan portraiture. Fabrics and jewellery were minutely and beautifully depicted; while faces often had the appearance of expressionless masks. Van Dyck's paintings, by contrast, with their command of perspective and space, confident brushwork and sense of movement, set a new standard to which his contemporaries and successors aspired. Artists ranging from Gainsborough to Sargent turned to him for inspiration.