King Charles I

Charles I appears in Van Dyck’s paintings wearing ermine, riding beneath an arch, standing beside a horse and turning his head through three different views. Each image gives kingship a different form. Charles’s patronage joined collecting, family display and diplomacy, while giving the painter a prominent place at court.

A king before the portraits

Born in Fife on 19 November 1600, Charles was the second son of James VI of Scotland and Anne of Denmark. His elder brother Henry’s death in 1612 made him heir; he succeeded his father in 1625 and married Henrietta Maria of France. Charles favoured ceremonial Anglican worship; his queen was Roman Catholic. He ruled without Parliament from 1629 until 1640. Disputes over royal power, taxation and religion intensified, including resistance to his religious policy in Scotland. War in England followed in 1642. Charles was executed outside the Banqueting House at Whitehall on 30 January 1649. ^[1]

Van Dyck had died in 1641. His portraits therefore belong to the years before the English Civil War, although we encounter them with knowledge of what followed. ^[5] That later knowledge can make a distant gaze seem ominous or a composed face seem tragically vulnerable. It helps to look first at the work the paintings were doing for a living ruler: establishing his presence, displaying his household and presenting authority in forms appropriate to different settings.

How Charles became a collector

Charles’s taste developed within a European world of royal collections. During unsuccessful marriage negotiations in Madrid in 1623, he encountered the Spanish royal pictures and Velázquez. He returned with works by Titian, Correggio and Giambologna. His acquisition of Raphael’s cartoons also supplied models for the tapestry weavers at Mortlake. In 1628 he purchased the Duke of Mantua’s collection; negotiations for Mantegna’s nine Triumphs of Caesar followed separately in 1629–32. ^[8]

These acquisitions help explain the ambition surrounding Van Dyck’s employment. The painter’s new likenesses would enter rooms already shaped by the art of earlier courts. A full-length king, a mounted commander and a royal family could take their places among paintings whose subjects, scale and illustrious makers associated collecting with princely distinction.

Charles’s patronage extended beyond Van Dyck. He acquired a Rubens self-portrait in 1623 and later commissioned Rubens’s ceiling for the Banqueting House. Abraham van der Doort began inventorying the royal collection in 1637. ^[8] Charles was buying older art, commissioning new work and organising a collection: related activities, each with its own practical demands.

Honours, access and unpaid bills

Van Dyck’s appointment in 1632 brought a knighthood, a promised annual payment of £200 and a gold chain. He had a house at Blackfriars with access from the Thames and rooms at Eltham. The National Portrait Gallery describes a landing stage that enabled royal visits to his riverside home. ^[2] These arrangements gave the painter a conspicuous place in court life. A river approach also makes the relationship unusually easy to imagine spatially: palace and painter were connected through the working waterway of London.

Royal favour did not ensure prompt payment. Blaise Ducos’s Louvre catalogue discusses Van Dyck’s autumn 1638 memorandum of outstanding picture charges and pension arrears extending over five years. For the picture identified as the king at the hunt, Van Dyck requested £200; the account was amended to £100. ^[6] The promised annual payment and this charge for one painting were different sums. Neither should be confused with the prices royal pictures fetched after Charles’s death.

The memorandum gives a practical edge to the relationship. Honour and access could coexist with outstanding bills, so the grandeur of a finished picture tells us little about the payment arrangements behind it.

Personal connections mattered too. Endymion Porter served Charles as a gentleman of the bedchamber and acted in the art world. Jonathan Brown’s Prado account treats his involvement in securing Van Dyck’s appointment as a supposition. ^[9] In their double portrait , Porter’s pale satin catches the eye while Van Dyck’s black clothing carries quieter gleams. Their hands meet the surface of the same rock. That shared support brings two differently dressed figures into a compact visual partnership, a useful companion to the more ceremonial images of the king.

Charles in robes of state, 1636

The standing portrait reproduced here is the Royal Collection’s RCIN 404398, signed and dated 1636. The museum identifies the ermine robes and regalia as the equipment of an official state portrait. A proposed connection with a royal family display in the Cross Gallery at Somerset House remains a possibility. ^[3]

Look at how much space the robe occupies. Its white lining drops down the left side and spreads across the floor, making the king’s body appear to unfold into the surrounding room. Small dark marks animate the ermine, while gold edging draws long boundaries around the darker fabric. At the shoulders, the robe forms a broad frame for the white lace collar and face. Below, its heavy folds almost conceal the legs, leaving the decorated shoes to establish where Charles stands.

One arm pushes out at the elbow and returns to the hip. The other hand hangs loosely beside the table. This unequal pairing gives the figure both breadth and an impression of relaxation: the king occupies his space without clenching either hand. The column continues upward behind him, while the crown glitters to the side. His face remains the most directly approachable part of an otherwise densely furnished statement of rank.

The composition also invites the eye to travel slowly. A first glance finds the face and white collar; a second follows the chain, embroidered edges and fall of cloth. Royal status is distributed across the painting. The crown can remain on the table because the whole arrangement already identifies its owner.

A family made visible

Among Van Dyck’s earliest royal commissions was Charles I and Henrietta Maria with their two eldest children , painted between April and August 1632 and known as The Great Peece . Prince Charles, the future Charles II, stands before his father; Princess Mary is held by her mother. The Royal Collection identifies a distant view of Westminster buildings and records the painting in Whitehall’s Long Gallery in 1639. ^[10]

For a patronage story, this group matters as much as an isolated royal likeness. It makes the king’s household the subject of a large court image. The children give succession a human scale, and the queen has her own place in the arrangement. A viewer can recognise family relationships while also understanding that the family has constitutional importance. Van Dyck’s portraiture offered the dynasty several forms of visibility: one ruler, a royal couple and a continuing line.

The mounted king and his riding master

In Charles I with M. de St Antoine , painted in 1633, the king rides beneath an immense arch. The man holding his helmet is Pierre Antoine Bourdin, Seigneur de St Antoine, his riding master and equerry. The Royal Collection suggests that the painting may originally have occupied the end of the Gallery at St James’s Palace. ^[4]

Here the horse advances almost towards us. Its pale head sits below Charles’s face, joining animal and rider along a rising central line. The horse’s chest makes a broad, rounded mass against the straight columns. Above it, the king’s armour catches light in small, hard flashes. The surrounding green curtains are restless by comparison, their angular folds gathering at the sides of the arch.

The equerry looks upward towards Charles, and his red clothing supplies a strong area of warmth beside the white horse. The relationship is immediately legible through placement and gaze. Charles holds the elevated position, while St Antoine’s service helps define it. In the lower corner, the royal arms and crown provide another concentration of colour and emblems.

The arch makes a threshold of the picture. The horse seems capable of moving from the open sky behind into the viewer’s space. That effect would be particularly forceful when approaching such a large canvas along a gallery. The suggested original location helps us think about how a royal portrait could organise an encounter before a visitor stood close enough to inspect the face.

Authority outdoors: the hunt and NG1172

The Louvre’s Charles I at the Hunt , about 1636, removes the architectural surround. Its original commission and location remain uncertain. ^[6] Charles stands at the left, with his horse and attendants gathered beneath the trees. His silver jacket catches the light; the dark hat gives the head a clear outline against the sky.

The outward elbow answers the projecting arm in the robes portrait, but here the silhouette is slimmer and more mobile. Boots, a cane and the angled legs make the stance look momentarily assumed. Behind him, the horse lowers its head, and the figures have room to continue their own small actions. The large tree canopy binds them together while the pale distance opens beside the king.

This change of setting offers another way to make precedence visible. Charles occupies the bright, open edge of the group. His clothing stands out from the darker figures behind, and his turned face addresses the viewer. The impression of an interruption during an outing depends on a carefully organised arrangement of bodies, colour and open space. The separate Charles I at the Hunt article explores that painting in detail.

The National Gallery’s Equestrian Portrait of Charles I , NG1172, is a further, separate composition, currently dated about 1638–9. ^[5] The king rides a dun horse through a landscape, accompanied by an unidentified helmet bearer. The Gallery’s scholarly catalogue connects the equestrian image with command over the realm and discusses its likely relevance to the religious conflict with Scotland. It establishes royal ownership but acknowledges the lack of documentation explaining Charles’s precise intentions. ^[11]

Placed alongside the other pictures, its choice of imagery becomes clearer. The robes portrait concentrates ceremonial objects around a standing body. St Antoine’s portrait stages an approach beneath an arch. The hunt allows the king to appear at ease outdoors. NG1172 brings armour and a commanding rider into the landscape. Charles could be represented through several compatible forms of authority, each offering a different encounter with the sovereign.

Three views for a sculptor

Charles I in Three Positions , painted in 1635–before June 1636, had an unusually specific purpose. It supplied views of Charles for Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s marble bust. The bust was a papal gift to Henrietta Maria, made while Rome hoped to encourage England’s return to Catholicism. It was executed in 1636 and presented to the royal couple in July 1637; the marble was destroyed in the Whitehall fire of 1698. ^[7]

Across the canvas, the same face becomes a profile, a frontal view and a three-quarter view. The repetition asks us to compare: the projection of the nose, the width of the cheeks, the pointed beard and the way the hair overlaps a shoulder. We can move between these views without losing the sitter’s identity.

The costumes keep the picture from looking like three mechanical repetitions. Dark blue, red and lustrous purple establish distinct areas below the heads; the broad lace collars offer different edges and patterns. The hands bring further movement into the lower part. It is a picture that communicates information through variety, giving the eye reasons to return from one likeness to another.

The commission also carries patronage beyond England. The king’s painted appearance travelled in his place, and the queen was central to the diplomatic exchange.

Henrietta Maria as a patron

Henrietta Maria’s patronage also left a documentary trace. An account note published by William Hookham Carpenter in 1844 assigns pictures marked with crosses to the queen for pricing and payment. In a letter dated 26 June 1639, also printed by Carpenter, she asks Bernini to make her own bust using portraits sent to him, after expressing her pleasure in the king’s. ^[12] The letter records her request; it does not establish that her bust was completed.

Her palace and portraits formed another part of the royal display. The National Gallery’s catalogue places NG1172 within the furnishing of her palace at Somerset House. ^[11] In Washington’s Queen Henrietta Maria with Sir Jeffrey Hudson , painted in 1633, she has a monumental portrait of her own. Hudson was a fourteen-year-old court attendant with dwarfism. The queen’s lowered hand reaches towards the monkey he carries. The National Gallery of Art relates the orange tree to the queen’s family and religious associations, while treating specific symbolic readings with qualification. ^[13]

The blue dress commands the image through its breadth and brightness. Narrow, vertical highlights run down the skirt, breaking into shorter turns where the cloth gathers on the step. Above it, the wide black hat produces a striking contrast with the pale face and lace. The gold curtain is almost as assertive as the blue, but it falls behind the queen, keeping her figure clear.

At the lower left, Hudson’s red clothing introduces another bright surface. He looks upward, while the queen looks outward. The reach of her hand creates a connection across the difference in height without closing the space between the two people. The portrait gives her a large, composed presence while leaving a smaller scene of attention and gesture beside her.

Seen with Charles’s portraits, this painting broadens the court’s visual identity. Royal patronage involved a queen with her own household, settings and associations.

Repeated likenesses and the work of a studio

A royal image could be repeated at different sizes and in different forms. The Royal Collection records numerous copies of the 1636 robes portrait, including full-length, three-quarter-length and head versions. ^[3] Such repetition made a successful likeness useful beyond its first setting. It also means that a familiar composition alone cannot identify the maker of a particular canvas.

The National Portrait Gallery has suggested that Van Dyck’s head of Charles at Chequers, about 1636, probably served as a studio model, with assistants likely responsible for costume passages. ^[2] For the smaller Royal Collection version associated with NG1172, the National Gallery catalogue questions the traditional identification as an autograph preparatory model and favours a studio copy. ^[11] These are assessments of particular paintings, with qualifications attached.

When comparing versions, begin with what each object actually contains. Does it show the whole figure or only the head? How much room surrounds the body? Have costume, attendant or background changed? Those questions help distinguish a change of format from a change in authorship. The broader workshop and influence story explains why collaboration and later copying require separate consideration.

After 1649: dispersed pictures, different journeys

Following Charles’s execution, his collection was dispersed; the Restoration in 1660 brought many works back, while others followed different routes. ^[8] The portraits discussed here make that uneven history tangible.

The robes portrait was sold with a now-lost portrait of the queen to Colonel Webb in October 1649 for £60. It was recovered at the Restoration. ^[3] The St Antoine equestrian portrait was sold in December 1652 for £150 to a buyer named Pope, and it too returned. ^[4] The Great Peece was sold in October 1651 and subsequently recovered. ^[10] The triple portrait had been sent to Bernini in Rome; George IV bought it in 1822. ^[7]

NG1172 took another course. Sold to Balthazar Gerbier in June 1650, it later belonged to the Elector of Bavaria and was given by Emperor Joseph I to the Duke of Marlborough. The National Gallery bought it from the Marlborough collection in 1885. ^[11] The Louvre hunt portrait entered the French royal collection in 1775, but its early journey from England remains unresolved. ^[6]

The collection’s breakup changed the setting in which these pictures could be understood. Paintings once connected through royal houses became objects encountered in different collections and countries. Seeing these works together again requires a comparison across collections. Their separate journeys are one reason why a single famous likeness can give only a partial view of Charles’s patronage.