Private passions: the sexual secrets hidden in the world’s greatest art

It has been suggested that a portrait by the Flemish painter Anthony van Dyck hides a secret about his love life. If so, he is part of a history that stretches from Caravaggio to Kahlo

Anthony van Dyck’s portrait of Isabella Brant – the wife of his mentor, Rubens – is usually seen as a homage to the painter who helped him on his way. But a new interpretation by the Cambridge academic John Harvey suggests that Van Dyck was actually Brant’s lover – and her wry smile in the portrait is a coded brag. If so, it is part of a long tradition of sexual secrets hidden in art. Spotting the love story is a game that still teases us centuries later.

In the 1600s, an English traveller in Rome was shown Caravaggio’s Amor Vincit Omnia – in which a naked Cupid looks with a sneering smile from the wreckage of culture – and was told it portrays “Caravaggio’s boy, that laid with him”. This youth was called Cecco, and appears in other paintings by Caravaggio. He is Isaac about to be killed by his father, and a nude Saint John the Baptist. Caravaggio taught him, as well as laying with him, and he became an artist in his own right.

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