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| Artist | After Dyck, Anthony van (Flemish painter, 1599-1641, active in England) |
| Title | King Charles I (1600-1649) and Prince Charles (1630-1685) |
| Date earliest | about 1632 |
| Date latest | about 1640 |
| Material | oil on canvas |
| Measurements | 232.5 x 150 cm |
| Description | A partial, early copy of the original by Van Dyck in the Royal Collection, showing Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria, with their children Charles, Prince of Wales and Princess Mary, painted in 1632 shortly after the artist's arrival in England. The painting now at Marble Hill includes only the left half of the original family portrait; it shows Charles I with his two year old son Charles, Prince of Wales. The painting is both a powerful image of dynastic descent, and a sensitive representation of father and son. Dominating the canvas, drawn life-size, is the figure of King Charles wearing the blue ribbon and star of the Garter. He is elegantly dressed in a black doublet embroidered in silver over which he wears a black mantle with the star of the Garter again visible at his shoulder, the mauve lining of his cloak matches his stockings. Behind him towers a classical column, both a noble architectural feature and a traditional emblem of fortitude. His right arm extends to the right coming to rest on a table both enclosing his son, who stands at his knee, in a protective gesture and drawing our attention to the emblems of monarchy: the crown, orb and sceptre. Not incidentally these emblems of power are vertically aligned above the crown prince, as is the distant view of Westminster where the future King's coronation would take place. |
| Subject | portrait (King Charles I, Prince Charles later King Charles II) |
| Collection | English Heritage (Marble Hill House) |
| Current accession number | 88029302 |
| Previous accession number(s) | 298 |
| Acquisition details | Purchased for 260 gns. by the Greater London Council for Marble Hill 1965. |
| Provenance | Said to have been listed in an inventory of 1695 taken for an ancestor of Lord Northwick; presumably by family descent to Capt. E. G. Spencer-Churchill; Northwick Park sale, Christie’s, 25 June 1965, lot 64, bought 260 gns. by Greater London Council. |
| Principal publications | Eyre, W. T., A Guide to Blockley, 1827, p. 42 (as attributed to Van Dyck); 'The Collection at Northwick Park', The Art Union Monthly Journal of the Fine Arts, VIII, 1846, p. 274 (in the Dining Room, as Van Dyck); Catalogue of the Pictures at Northwick Park, 1864, no. 288 (in the Dining Room, as Van Dyck); Borenius, T., A Catalogue of the Collection of Pictures at Northwick Park, 1921, no. 126 (as after Van Dyck); Miller, O., The Tudor, Stuart and Early Georgian Pictures in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen, 1963, p. 98. |
| Notes |
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| Rights status | © English Heritage Photo Library |
| Author | Francesco Nevola |
