Born Remigius van Leemput in Antwerp on the 18th of December 1607, this Flemish artist would eventually be known in England simply as Remee, a nickname that stripped away his noble-sounding surname and reduced him to a familiar, almost humble moniker. He entered the Guild of Saint Luke in Antwerp on the 18th of September 1618 as a pupil of Frans van Lanckvelt the Elder, a relatively obscure painter who also taught Theodoor Rombouts and Peeter Sion. By the 18th of September 1628, he had earned his master status, yet his true legacy would not be forged in the quiet workshops of Flanders but in the bustling, politically volatile art scene of London. He likely arrived in England around 1632, possibly following the trail of Anthony van Dyck, the most celebrated portraitist of the age. While many Flemish artists sought fortune abroad, van Leemput distinguished himself not by original genius but by an uncanny ability to replicate the work of others, becoming the most prolific copyist of van Dyck's portraits. His life was a testament to the fluid nature of artistic identity in the 17th century, where the line between creator and replicator was often blurred by commercial necessity and royal patronage.
The Van Dyck Connection
In London, van Leemput found his most significant collaborator in Anthony van Dyck, the Flemish master who had been appointed Principal Painter to King Charles I. Together with George Geldorp, another Antwerp guild master, van Leemput formed the core team that kept van Dyck's busy London studio running during the artist's final stay. While Geldorp handled the commercial side, managing sales of copies and frames, van Leemput focused on the production of the paintings themselves, creating both full-size and reduced copies that allowed the king to distribute likenesses to his court. The King himself commissioned a copy of van Dyck's Portrait of Charles I and Henrietta Maria with their two eldest children from van Leemput, a task executed through the Lord Chamberlain, Philip Herbert, 4th Earl of Pembroke. This relationship was so close that van Leemput later claimed he could copy the work of Peter Lely, the successor to van Dyck, better than Lely could himself, suggesting a level of confidence that bordered on arrogance. He may have even served as an assistant to Lely, bridging the gap between two generations of English portraiture. His marriage to Anna Maria Geldorp, the daughter of his associate Georg Geldorp, further cemented these professional ties, weaving a family and business network that dominated the London art market.The Royal Auctioneer
The execution of King Charles I in 1649 triggered a chaotic liquidation of the royal art collection, a event that transformed van Leemput from a court copyist into a major art dealer and collector. As the king's debts were settled, his vast holdings were broken up and sold off, and van Leemput emerged as a voracious buyer, acquiring 35 paintings and sculptures over a six-month period. He purchased masterpieces from Titian, Giorgione, Correggio, and Andrea del Sarto, building a collection that rivaled the royal holdings he had once helped to replicate. Among his most prized acquisitions was the famous equestrian portrait by van Dyck of Charles I with M. de St Antoine. He attempted to sell this work in Antwerp, but his asking price of 1,500 guineas was deemed too high, and the sale failed. It remains possible that he was attempting to sell a copy he had made himself rather than the original, a deception that highlights the murky nature of the art market at the time. After the Restoration in 1660, the painting remained in his possession until it was recovered from him for Charles II through legal proceedings, a testament to the legal complexities that surrounded the ownership of royal art during the Interregnum.