Susanna Fourment and Her Daughter by Dyck, Anthony van, Sir
This is Anthony van Dyck's 'Susanna Fourment and Her Daughter,' painted in 1621 and now housed at the Christ Church Picture Gallery in Oxford. What makes this intimate family portrait remarkable is not just the tenderness of the clasped hands, but the fact that in 2020 it was the target of a brazen heist.
Look at the joined hands at the center of the composition. That handhold is the painting's emotional anchor. Look also at the daughter's vivid salmon-pink dress, a chromatic surprise that pulls your eye before the mother's softly lit face. Van Dyck lavished care on every texture: the translucent lace ruff, the shimmering shot-silk skirt achieved through painstaking glazing, and the miniature period shoes at lower left.
In March 2020, thieves broke into Christ Church College and stole this painting along with two other Old Master works. They cut the canvases from their frames and fled. The theft sent shockwaves through the art world; the paintings were missing for over four years before being recovered in 2024, rolled up and hidden. Conservators carefully restored the damage.
Van Dyck painted this when he was only twenty-two, shortly before his transformative years in Italy. The sitter is his sister-in-law, which explains the unguarded warmth in her expression, this is not a formal commission but a family member, rendered with unusual intimacy. The painting survived a crime and returned, carrying the memory of its ordeal.
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Transcript
They look like a gentle mother and child. But this painting was nearly destroyed by thieves. In 2020, two men broke into an Oxford college. They walked right past students to a quiet gallery. They slashed this canvas out of its frame. And vanished into the night, leaving an empty wall. Four years later, it was found, rolled up and hidden. Look at the hands, carefully restored, the clasp held.