Produced as part of his series of etchings entitled 'Iconography'.
'The Iconography was a collection of portrait prints made after drawings and paintings by van Dyck. Eighteen were etched by the artist himself, among which is his self-portrait and this print. The majority, however, are engravings made by a variety of printmakers. This anthology of portraits of artists, soldiers, statesmen, administrators, and scholars, a conspectus of the most distinguished men and women of his time, went through many editions. The edition published by Martinus van den Enden during van Dyck's lifetime consisted of eighty portraits. Van Dyck prepared these prints by making oil sketches and drawings in black chalk, sometimes washed with brown ink.'
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/rvd_d/hd_rvd_d.htm
The plates were print off of many times after van Dyck's and were sold to the Louvre in the Nineteenth Century. This print, given the text at the bottom of the print, is not one of the first printings.