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Equestrian Portrait of Charles I

Catalogue entry

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Extracted from:
Gregory Martin, Nina Cahill and Bart Cornelis, The Flemish Paintings (London: The National Gallery, forthcoming).

© The National Gallery, London

About 1638

Oil on canvas, 368 x 292.5 cm

Inscribed on the tablet hanging on the tree on the right: CAROLVS . I . [numeral probably a later addition] / REX MAGNÆ / BRITANIÆ

Technical Notes

Support

The support consists of two pieces of twill weave canvas with a black ticking pattern, joined with a horizontal central seam.1

Materials and Technique2

The support is prepared with a double ground. The lower, red‐brown layer, consisting mainly of a red earth,3 probably only just filled the interstices of the canvas weave. This is followed by a thicker, light grey priming bound in partially heat‐bodied linseed oil,4 and containing lead white mixed with some charcoal black, finely grained particles of umber (and possibly of a brown humic earth of the Cassel earth type), small amounts of yellow ochre and finely grained red ochre.5 Marks visible in the X‐radiograph suggest that this second layer was probably applied with a large spatula.6

It is not possible to establish with certainty how Van Dyck transferred the design to the canvas, nor which material he used.7 An area around the sitter’s head, particularly to the left of the forehead, appears dark in the infrared reflectogram (fig. 1). This could be an example of Van Dyck blocking‐in a flat dark background around a head as he paints, an aspect of his technique observed in several other portraits from the 1630s.8 Apart from the addition of a rear defence to the armour (a culet), there are no major compositional alterations to the principal figure.9 Particular concern is however shown in conveying the horse’s gait; as many as three positions were tried for the rear left leg. More significant changes are seen in the background, where the canopy of trees above the king’s head, the line of the horizon and the fall of ground between the horse’s legs have all been adjusted. Noteworthy is the fact that a large building, possibly a castle, was at one stage shown in the distant landscape that now has no distinctive feature, with different foliage in the middle ground (fig. 2 and fig. 3).

Fig. 1

Infrared reflectogram of NG1172. © The National Gallery, London

Fig. 2

Infrared reflectogram detail of NG1172, showing changes in the far landscape on the left side where van Dyck had originally painted a building. © The National Gallery, London

Fig. 3

Detail of NG1172, showing changes in the far landscape on the left side where van Dyck had originally painted a building. © The National Gallery, London

The greens primarily derive from a combination of mineral azurite, yellow lake and yellow ochre. These are mixed in variable proportions with lead white, charcoal black, touches of umber and red ochre, to modulate the colour and opacity of the paint. The yellowest highlights of the foliage behind the sitter contain larger amounts of yellow pigments, including some lead‐tin yellow.10 The light and more opaque greens of the middle‐distance landscape and foreground foliage contain larger proportions of lead white, while the deeper tones of the distant landscape and foliage just below the horse are painted with dark greens (mainly azurite and yellow lake), glazed with translucent browns containing yellow lake, charcoal black and small amounts of lead white.11 Fading of the yellow lake has altered the hue of some of the greens (now appearing bluer than originally intended), and has contributed to the slightly blanched appearance of certain dark tones: the foliage under the horse, where the uppermost brown glazes have lost their deep yellow component and have to some extent broken up, now appears grey.

The same yellow lake, prone to fading, was identified as a component of the browns in the foreground, where it is mixed in varying proportions with umber, a rich‐brown humic earth (of the Cassel earth type), charcoal black and lead white.12 Analysis of paint cross‐sections showed that the leaves in the lower right corner, the servant’s tunic and arm were painted on top of some brown paint which had already been laid out, presumably as a first stage in painting the natural setting.13 This brown is intentionally used as the base colour for the mid‐dark tones of the servant’s tunic, the folds of which are then modelled with touches of grey (to start defining the deepest shadows) and an array of reds and pinks containing variable amounts of red ochre, charcoal black, lead white and red lake. The red lake, prepared from cochineal, has largely retained its intense colour.14

Only small quantities of this lake are included in the red paint of the saddle, which primarily consists of a different red lake, prepared from a brazilwood dyestuff, mixed with some red ochre, touches of yellow ochre and of a very finely grained lead‐based pigment, thought to be red lead.15 The inner sides of the pommel plate and rear thigh pad are rendered with a blue paint (containing variable proportions of indigo, lead white and charcoal black), perhaps intended to represent dark velvet.16 A similar blue was used for the fringes and what now tentatively reads as a decorative pattern and/or a depiction of the sheen of the fabric. The tonality of the main colours in the saddle has muted with time, due to fading of the brazilwood lake and indigo. The blue of the sky was originally modulated by applying natural ultramarine over an underpaint containing smalt. The latter has partially discoloured and the underpaint, now appearing pale greyish‐blue, would have originally been a stronger blue colour.17

Medium analysis indicates the use of heat‐bodied linseed oil.18

Condition

Splits and losses at the left and right edges of the support and a horizontal craquelure are likely to have been caused when the canvas was rolled up for transportation (see below under Provenance). The sitter and the horse’s coat are well preserved. Elsewhere the condition is reasonable, with some areas of abrasion most notably in the upper part of the sky where much of the final layer of ultramarine has been removed, in areas of the distant landscape, and in the saddle where to a degree the artist’s intention has been lost. These issues were addressed in the most recent treatment. Certain pigments have altered over time (see above).

Conservation

The canvas was lined before it entered the collection; it was again lined in 1885, 1889 (to improve the appearance of the central canvas join), in 1948 and 2019.19 The painting was cleaned and restored in 1951–2 and again in 2018–19.

Select Bibliography

Bellori 1672, p. 260; van der Doort 1757, p. 4, no. 17; Walpole 1762–71, vol. 2, p. 92; Walpole 1826–8, vol. 2, p. 214; Smith 1829–42, vol. 3, p. 77, no. 255; Waagen 1854, vol. 3, p. 129; Guiffrey 1882, pp. 182, 260, no. 450; Cust 1900, pp. 103–4, 263, no. 6, ill. after p. 98; Schaeffer 1909, p. 341; Cust 1911, pp. 202–9, ill. after p. 202; Glück 1931, p. 381; Glück 1937, p. 217; Goldsmith 1954; Martin 1970, pp. 41–7; Strong 1972; Brown 1982, pp. 168–9, figs 167, 168 (details); Moffit 1983, pp. 80, 82, fig. 2; Stewart 1983, pp. 57–8, fig. 1; Larsen 1988, vol. I, pp. 300, 477–8, vol. II, p. 314, no. 795; Liedtke 1989, p. 263, no. 132, fig. 27; Wheelock et al. 1990–1, p. 355, under cat. 97 (entry by Julius S. Held); Parry 1994, pp. 150, 151, fig. 2; Adamson 1994, pp. 161–3, 175, fig. 7.2; Hennen 1995, esp. pp. 124–40, fig. 4; Howarth 1997, pp. 136–45, ill. p. 137; Roy 1999, pp. 77–9; Brown 1999, p. 30, fig. 16; Raatschen 2003, pp. 110–32, fig. 23; Millar in Barnes et al. 2004, pp. 468ff, no. IV.51; Sharpe 2009, p. 18, fig. 7; Díaz Padrón 2012, vol. II, pp. 486–93, under no. 61, fig. 61.1; Haskell 2013, p. 145, fig. 147; Haldane 2017, pp. 30–1, 145, no. 8, ill. p. 31; Shawe‐Taylor 2018, p. 131, ill. p. 145; Thoma 2019, pp. 54–8, 68, note 1, fig. 39; Ackroyd et al. 2021, pp. 118–33, figs 1, 2, 6, 8, 14, 15–17.

Exhibitions

London, British Institution, Pictures by Rubens, Rembrandt, Vandyke, and Other Artists of the Flemish and Dutch Schools, With Which the Proprietors Have Favoured the British Institution ..., 1815 (1); London, Royal Academy of Arts, Charles I: King and Collector, 2018 (74).

Introduction

Of Anthony van Dyck’s handful of extant equestrian portraits, the present depiction of King Charles I was probably to be the last portrayal of the monarch by the artist, whose ‘principalle painter in Ordinarie’ he had been since 1632.20 Unlike the first, of 1633 (Royal Collection Trust; fig. 4),21 it did not broadcast a triumphant dynastic message, but most likely arose from the king’s wish to have his royal duty as defender of the faith commemorated. Seen against the preparations to confront the Scottish Covenanters around 1638, it reflected the king’s determination to proclaim his authority and to face down his opponents.

Provenance

Hampton Court, Middlesex – Denmark/Somerset House, London

The reverse of the present painting is branded with the cipher of King Charles I devised by the surveyor of the king’s collections, Abraham van der Doort (1565/70–1640), to denote royal ownership,22 but it was not in the part of the royal collection catalogued by him from 1637.23 Van der Doort never completed his ambitious undertaking as he had managed to cover only the palace of Whitehall in Westminster and Nonesuch Palace in Surrey before either his suicide in 1640 or earlier circumstances outside his control saw the end of the project. But he knew of NG1172, because he described a work he catalogued in the Chair Room in Whitehall as Van Dyck’s modello for it: ‘... the King, upon a Dunn horse one following his Matie carrying his head peece ... Done by Sr Anthony Vandike being the first moddell of ye king in greate on horseback ...’, which was ‘at this time in the Princes Gallory at Hampton Court’.24 The Prince’s Gallery is not identified as such in published plans of Hampton Court, but it is not unlikely to be what earlier was called the King’s Long Gallery, leading to a room known as ‘Paradise’ created by Henry VIII (1491–1547), on the first floor of the palace on the eastern side of the Green Cloister Court.25 By the phrase ‘at this time’, van der Doort seems to suggest that the placement of the painting had not been fixed.26 Maybe a plan to hang it there was abandoned,27 and it was moved to Denmark House (soon to revert to its erstwhile appellation of Somerset House), the palace on the Strand, London, occupied by Charles’s consort Henrietta Maria (1609–1669), for Somerset House was given as its place of origin in the records (1649–51) of the Trustees for the sale of the late king’s goods.28 It was displayed in the Great Gallery built for James I’s consort Anne of Denmark (1574–1619) at the eastern, riverside end of the building – described as ‘one of the most magnificent rooms in London’29 – in which over one hundred paintings were displayed, including Titian’s Alfonso D’Avalos addressing his Troops (Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado). The transport of the Van Dyck from Hampton Court to Somerset House is not documented; its display there should be seen as part of the constant improvements to the interior decoration of the palace undertaken in the 1630s and early 1640s on behalf of the queen.30

The parliamentary act to enable the sale of royal possessions was passed some six months after the execution of the king on 30 January 1649; the fitting up of the Great Hall at Somerset House as the sale venue was authorised some weeks later.31 Paintings from the adjacent Great Gallery were available from October of that year, but it was not until 21 June of the following year that the present painting was recorded as having been sold to Sir Balthazar Gerbier (1592–1663) at the official valuation of £200;32 on the same day, he acquired for £150 Titian’s full‐length portrait, Emperor Charles V with a Dog (Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado), which had come from St James’s Palace, Westminster.33 These were by far the most substantial sums paid for the few purchases Gerbier made from the royal possessions. They were probably not for his own account, as in the very varied career of this enigmatic figure in the diplomatic and cultural worlds of Caroline and Commonwealth England, and of his native Republic of the United Provinces which reached a highpoint about 1640, there is no suggestion of his being an important collector of paintings.34 Most likely he was acting with and/or for the Spanish ambassador Alonso de Cárdenas (about 1592–1666, in post 1638–55), who in the last years of his embassy made a large number of acquisitions financed by the first minister of King Philip IV (1605–1665) of Spain, using agents to conceal his identity.35 Thus on 10 February 1651, he reported that he had bought the Titian portrait of Charles V and sent it to the minister.36 A transaction for the Equestrian Portrait seems to have stalled, for in a memorandum of 25 May 1654 which included an account for August 1651, Cárdenas listed it as still available.37 (Also to fail was the onward sale, by another, unconnected, agent, of Van Dyck’s 1633 equestrian portrait of Charles I (Royal Collection Trust) after its purchase in 1652).38 What then happened to NG1172 remains unknown; but that it was soon exported seems very probable, for, at all events, it was out of the reach of Charles II’s officers as they sought to recover his father’s possessions after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660.

Antwerp – Brussels – Munich

It was not until almost half a century after the purchase of the painting by Gerbier in London that its whereabouts are known: its then owner was a wealthy Antwerp citizen Gijsbert (or Gisberto) van Colen (1636–1703), a member of a long‐standing dynasty of merchants and the head of the largest trading enterprise in the southern Netherlands.39 The firm Van Colen operated mainly in Spain and its territories, and dealt in luxury goods and books. It also traded in arms and occasionally sold tapestries and paintings.40 The Equestrian Portrait of Charles I was one of the 101 paintings sold in Antwerp by van Colen to Maximilian II Emanuel (1662–1726), governor of the Spanish Netherlands and elector of Bavaria, for a total of 90,000 Brabantine guilders on 17 September 1698.41 While seven of the eleven portraits by Van Dyck in this sale can be traced back to noted Antwerp collectors, the previous owner of the present painting, which was priced at 4,000 speciesthaler, is not known.42 Maybe it had been acquired by van Colen’s widowed mother Suzanne, née Hureau (1611–1677), who ran the business after her husband’s death in 1647.43 The circumstances behind this extraordinary sale remain mysterious.

Maximilian II Emanuel, head of the Bavarian branch of the House of Wittelsbach, elector of Bavaria from 1679 to 1704 and governor of the Spanish Netherlands from 1692 to 1700 and 1702 to 1706, was a flamboyant figure, a great collector and important patron of the arts.44 He owned the Equestrian Portrait only for some eight years due to his defeats as an ally of Louis XIV of France (1638–1715) at the battles of Blenheim (Höchstädt‐Blindheim) in southern Germany in 1704 and of Ramillies in the southern Netherlands in 1706 by the army of the Grand Alliance led by John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough (1650–1722).45 While governor of the Spanish Netherlands, Max Emanuel presided over a stylish court, decorating his Brussels residence, the palace of Coudenberg, with furnishings and works of art46 This was also when he acquired most of his paintings,47 concentrating on the Flemish seventeenth century and in particular works by Van Dyck. His most important Van Dyck, the Equestrian Portrait of Charles I, was most likely displayed in the palace of Coudenberg.48 The painting collection probably moved with the court to the Wittelsbach Bavarian capital, Munich, in 1701 after Max Emanuel fled Brussels, bringing to an end his first term as governor. It is not known where the Equestrian Portrait was then displayed.49 After the battle of Blenheim and the defeated elector’s flight from Bavaria, Munich was placed briefly under the regency of his wife Theresa Kunegunda (1676–1730) (daughter of King Johann III Sobieski of Poland), but after her departure in early 1705 and his being placed under the ban of the empire (on 29 April 1706),50 the city was occupied by imperial troops and the Van Dyck became the possession of Emperor Joseph I (1678–1711).

Amidst high matters of state diplomacy and the conduct of armies, Marlborough found time after the victory at Ramillies in May 1706 to dwell on the palace that was to be built on land at Woodstock, Oxfordshire, awarded to him by Queen Anne (1665–1714) at the wish of Parliament. Construction at public expense had begun in 1705 of what was to be Blenheim Palace, and the duke – already made a prince of the empire – approached the emperor via an intermediary in September for a gift of paintings, in particular the Van Dyck,51 with which to decorate it. How he knew of the portrait is not recorded; but as a work by a much admired artist, it would have appealed to him – devoted as he was to the house of Stuart – by its commemoration on a grand scale the grandfather of his patron, the then queen. Charles’s depiction in the role of a military commander would also have struck a chord with a successful general.52

The emperor acceded to his request and authorised the painting’s release in a letter to the Reichshofratpräsident Count Oettingen‐Wallerstein: ‘Dear Count von Ötting the Duke of Marlborugh [sic] has made it known that he would be glad if he would receive some paintings from the Munich Kunstkammer among which he particularly requests King Charles of England’s portrait on horseback made by the painter Wondeick.’53 An enthusiastic Marlborough informed his wife, Sarah (1660–1744), in a letter of 8 November 1706: ‘I am so fond of some pictures I shall bring with me, that I could wish you had a place for them till the Gallery at Woodstock be finished; for it is certain there are not in England so fine pictures as some of these, particularly King Charles on horseback, done by Vandyke. It was the Elector of Bavaria’s, and given to the Emperor, and I hope it is by this time in Holland.’54 Marlborough glossed over the facts when describing the painting as having been a gift to the emperor; indeed Maximilian II Emanuel was to mourn its loss: ‘By the way, I am losing all taste and joy in paintings when I think about how my beautiful collection in Munich has been looted. Without a doubt, you already know that the splendid picture by Van Dyck of the King of England on horseback was given by the Emperor to the Duke of Marlborough as a present. In Brussels Trevisans [Trevisanus was Max Emanuel’s court musician] had seen with his own eyes how it was rolled up to be sent to England, where it might be now already.’55

London – Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire – London

The Duke of Marlborough may well have seen the Van Dyck recently installed in Blenheim Palace (which was still under construction at the time of his death in 1722), as he stayed at the palace in 1719 and again in 1720–1.56 Earlier, there had been nowhere to place it on its arrival in England – Marlborough House, on Pall Mall, was not completed until 1711 – so a loan to Lord Halifax saw it displayed in his house in Jermyn Street, London, where it was recorded in 1708.57 Subsequently, it was presumably displayed at Marlborough House, until it could be moved to Blenheim Palace, where it was to be placed to provide a sensational view, at the end of the Picture Gallery, a magnificent 53 metres in length and completed in 1728.58 Some thirty years later,59 it was returned to London because the Picture Gallery had been converted in 1749 to house the Sunderland Library inherited by Charles Spencer, 3rd Duke of Marlborough (1706–1758). After the death of his successor and the expiry of the Marlborough House lease in 1817, it was again on show at Blenheim following its exhibition at the British Institution;60 it remained there until its sale by the 8th Duke, Charles Spencer‐Churchill (1844–1892), to the National Gallery.

Following Raphael’s Ansidei Madonna (NG1171), the Equestrian Portrait of Charles I was the second choice of the National Gallery’s Trustees from the list of paintings offered for sale in 1884.61 After long negotiations and much public debate,62 the Van Dyck was acquired for £17,500 in the following year.

The Sitter

The sitter, Charles I (1600–1649), King of Great Britain, is identified by the inscription on the gilt tablet suspended from a tree at the right edge. He is the only British monarch to have been executed for high treason, so condemned by a court set up at the behest of the victorious Roundhead army in the war that had been declared by the king in 1642. The causes of the English Civil War were manifold, but Charles had provoked antagonism by his attempt to implement the traditional concept of kingship by ruling as a divinely constituted sovereign answerable only to God for his actions, and by his attempt to impose on the Scots his contested version of Protestantism.

Charles was the second son of King James (Stuart) VI of Scotland and I of England (1566–1625), and was born in Scotland three years before his father’s accession to the English throne. He married Henrietta Maria (1609–1669), the Catholic sister of the king of France, by whom he had nine children, five of whom were still alive when the Civil War began. His reign opened with unsuccessful military incursions on the Continent followed by a decade (without Parliaments) of peace and prosperity; he was an important collector of paintings and patron of the arts. But the final four years of peace first saw armed confrontation on the Scottish borders over his religious diktat and then increasingly violent disturbances in London and Westminster, which culminated in the royal family’s flight from the capital early in 1642; he was to be defeated in the ensuing Civil War.

The Commission

The present painting was first owned by, and therefore was a commission from, King Charles, and its size indicates both that a specific place had been identified for its display and that exceptional importance was attached to it. This is further suggested by the fact that Van Dyck was required to produce at least one modello for the king’s approval (see below). However, there is no documentation that throws light on the king’s intentions, other than a determination to place it in a royal palace, either Hampton Court in Middlesex or Somerset House in London (see above).

Composition

In England, this type of portrait was almost unprecedented.63 Following likely but hypothetical discussions, which saw the production of at least one modello (see below), it was settled that for this commission, to which Van Dyck brought a degree of experience,64 the king and his mount should be shown in near profile and set not against the impressive masonry of Van Dyck’s 1633 equestrian portrait (fig. 4, Royal Collection Trust, and see above) but in a verdant landscape. Like with Van Dyck’s earlier equestrian portraits of Albert de Ligne, Prince of Arenberg and Barbançon (The Earl of Leicester and the Trustees of the Holkham Estate, Holkham Hall, Norfolk)65 and of Francisco de Moncada, Marqués de Aytona (Paris, Musée du Louvre),66 Charles was to be shown before a canopy of trees, but on an even grander scale as befitted a king. He was to be shown in armour in his role of defender of the faith and realm, and accompanied – following a royal convention – by a servant holding his helmet.67 But he was not to appear actively engaged, as Prince Francis Thomas of Savoy‐Carignano had required;68 thus in the present painting the baton of command rests in place and his mount performs no attention‐seeking curvet but was to proceed at a collected trot.69 These specifications were in accord with those that had earlier prompted an unused grisaille sketch (Wiltshire, Wilton House),70 where the composition is in reverse; but in NG1172 no element of triumph was envisaged as proclaimed in the grisaille by the personifications of Victory in the sky (fig. 5). The hero in the grisaille sketch had engaged the viewer with his gaze, but probably in imitation of Titian’s portrayal of the Emperor Charles V at the battle of Mühlberg;71 the king’s focus in NG1172 was to be set on a distant prospect. In contrast, his superb mount with foam at the mouth and ears pinned back was to eye the spectator as if with a challenge (fig. 6). These details concerning rider and mount are also present in Velázquez’s rendering of Philip IV of Spain of about 1635 painted for the Hall of Realms in the Buen Retiro Palace (Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado).72

Fig. 4

Anthony van Dyck, Charles I with M. de St Antoine, 1633. Oil on canvas, 370 × 270 cm. The Royal Collection / HM King Charles III, RCIN 405322. Royal Collection Trust / © His Majesty King Charles III, 2024

Fig. 5

Anthony van Dyck, Portrait of a Military Commander on Horseback, about 1634. Oil on panel, 31.7 × 22.9 cm. The Earl of Pembroke, Wiltshire, Wilton House. © Collection of the Earl of Pembroke, Wilton House, Wilts. Bridgeman Images

Fig. 6

Detail of NG1172, the head of the horse. © The National Gallery, London

Treatment

The king wears the same armour as he had in Van Dyck’s 1633 equestrian portrait of Charles (Royal Collection Trust; fig. 4); it was a garniture made for jousting (lacking the additional protection for the breastplate, left arm, greaves and sabatons, the armour for the lower legs and feet) by the Royal Armouries, Greenwich to a design of about 1610 (fig. 7).73 Similar white armour (polished, without decoration), perhaps following the king’s example, was worn in Van Dyck’s portraits of, among others, the Earl of Arundel depicted with his grandson (1635–6; The Duke of Norfolk, Arundel Castle, Sussex),74 the Elector Palatine and Prince Rupert (1636–7, Paris, Musée du Louvre)75 and Sir Edmund Verney (1639–40, private collection)76 – though here the defence was of a simplified form. In the present painting a culet, a defence in cuirassier armour of the 1630s fitted to protect the lower back, has been introduced; it is an anachronism when fitted to a suit of around 1610.77

Fig. 7

Greenwich Half Armour, 1610. Height 163 cm, width 69 cm, depth 50 cm, weight 17.43 kg. Royal Armouries Collections, inv. II.73. © Royal Armouries

The king in the present portrait wears a short linen collar as opposed to the wide lace collar of shoulder width in Van Dyck’s rendering of 1633; comparable is that worn by Algernon Percy, 10th Earl of Northumberland, in his two portraits of about 1638 (The Duke of Northumberland, Alnwick Castle, Northumberland).78 He wears the Lesser George, the badge of the Order of the Garter, suspended at his chest by a gold chain.79 The weapon at his side is a horseman’s rapier without a knuckle guard and thus for use with a gauntlet,80 which the king wears. It was by definition for civilian rather than military use.81 The same weapon features in other royal portraits by Van Dyck, among them the full‐length painting of Charles I of about 1638 (St Petersburg, the State Hermitage Museum),82 which includes a helmet with a panache of ostrich feathers. In the National Gallery portrait, the plumes are mixed with a sprig of egret feathers and are red and white, the colours of Saint George, the patron saint of England. The helmet is borne by a young foot‐servant wearing a red satin tunic, suggestive of a time of peace. Unlike in the 1633 equestrian portrait, the helmet bearer remains anonymous.83

The king’s posture or seat is shown to be in all respects correct according to the prescriptions laid down in the treatise of 1658 by William Cavendish, Marquis of Newcastle (1593–1676) (1st Duke of Newcastle from 1665),84 who had taught horsemanship to the young Prince of Wales in the 1630s.85

As if in anticipation of the epithet promoted by Cavendish – ‘Après l’homme le Cheval le plus noble animal’ (‘After man the horse the most noble animal’)86 – the mount in NG1172 is given as much, or more, prominence as the sitter. Depicted is a stallion, a ‘destrier’ or Great Horse, and more specifically an Andalusian or Iberian saddle horse.87 For Cavendish it was the best breed; indeed he had ‘seen Spanish horses ... which were proper to be painted after, or fit for a king to mount on a publick occasion’.88 The colour of the coat is dun (‘fallow’), which for Cavendish was ‘not a bad colour, provided that the horse’s mane, tail, and feet are black’,89 which is the case here. The breed was already long present in England, but was no doubt boosted by the 24 animals from the royal stud at Cordova given by King Philip IV to the Prince of Wales in 1624.90 It is well represented in the surviving royal stud books of Hampton Court and the Tetbury and Malmesbury Races of 1620 and 1624;91 from one such covering, the present magnificent beast probably descended. Its mane is profuse and curly, having been plaited in the style favoured for horses depicted by Velázquez at the Habsburg court in Spain in the 1630s.92 The horse’s furniture corresponds to that illustrated by Cavendish (fig. 8), including the branches of the ‘Connetable’ bit, the rowel spurs, stirrup and saddle93 (though some of the studs in the rear thigh pad and the pommel plate are now less clearly visible; see Technical Notes).94

Fig. 8

Lucas Vorsterman II, after Abraham van Diepenbeeck, Illustration of horse furniture, in William Cavendish, La Méthode nouvelle et invention extraordinaire de dresser les chevaux…Par le tres‐noble, haut, et tres‐puissant Prince Guillaume Marquis et Comte de Newcastle, Antwerp 1658, pl. 13. © Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris

Although the painting was intended to be displayed in a royal palace where the sitter would of course have been recognised, it was still considered necessary that it should broadcast his identity. This was done by modifying the traditional motif of a tree of chivalry to display a tablet suspended from the tree at the right edge,95 inscribed with the sitter’s name and regal style (fig. 9).96 Van Dyck may have been familiar with this arrangement, as he may have already introduced it in a now lost equestrian portrait of the Cardinal‐Infante Ferdinand of Austria (1609–1641).97

Fig. 9

Detail of NG1172, the tablet and inscription. © The National Gallery, London

The tree in question is in a copse set in a landscape that for Van Dyck was intended to be typically English. The tree in the middle ground has the same shape as one in a stand of trees he had sketched during a visit to the countryside (London, British Museum) (fig. 10).98 In the left foreground a tree trunk is rooted in an outcrop; in front of it is a corn sow thistle (Sonchus arvensis), a plant which the artist had studied (fig. 11).99

Fig. 10

Anthony van Dyck, Study of Trees in Full Foliage, 1634–6. Pen and brown ink, with grey‐brown wash and watercolour, 19.5 × 23.6 cm. London, British Museum, inv. Oo,9.50. © The Trustees of the British Museum

Fig. 11

Anthony van Dyck, Study of Plants, about 1632–41. Pen, brown ink with grey‐brown wash on paper, 21.2 × 32.5 cm. London, British Museum, inv. 1885.0509.47. © The Trustees of the British Museum

The presence of a castle in the left background, which was later painted out by Van Dyck (see Technical Notes, fig. 1, fig. 2 and fig. 3), might be more than a coincidence at the time when Charles I had commissioned Alexander Keirincx (1600–1652) to paint ten views of towns and castles in Yorkshire and Scotland, possibly to emphasise his authority in light of an anticipated victory against the Scots.100

Physiognomy

After several years working in England as the king’s ‘Principalle Paynter in Ordinarie’, Van Dyck must have been familiar with Charles’s physiognomy. In NG1172, the head was presumably to be in the same position as that on the right in the painting sent in 1635 as a model from which Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598–1680) was to sculpt his portrait bust (fig. 12).101 But in the passage of some three years or so (see below) the king seems markedly to have aged, the face is fuller and apparently more fatigued, with his hair, longer and wavier, brushed further back (fig. 13). It is likely that Van Dyck had made a new drawing of the face, especially for this commission,102 although none is recorded. And as it turned out this was to be his last rendering of the sitter. Noteworthy is the pearl pendant worn from Charles’s ear, a French fashion which had been followed by his father’s favourite Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset (1587–1645) and his successor, George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham (1592–1628), favourite of both kings James and Charles. Charles adopted the style from about the age of fifteen and was reportedly wearing one at his execution.

Fig. 12

Anthony van Dyck, Charles I, before June 1636. Oil on canvas, 84.4 × 99.4 cm. The Royal Collection / HM King Charles III, RCIN 404420. Royal Collection Trust / © His Majesty King Charles III, 2024

Fig. 13

Detail of NG1172, King Charles’s head. © The National Gallery, London

Dating

It is not possible to state with any certainty when NG1172 was executed; there is some circumstantial evidence that can be adduced, although it does not permit great precision. Clearly ‘probably late 1639’ – when it is estimated that the fair texts of van der Doort’s list of works in the Chair Room at Whitehall were made – provides a terminus ante quem.103 Both preparation for, and execution of, such a large work would have taken time, and while the king’s requirements would have been treated as paramount, allowance has to be made for the artist’s non‐royal commitments. It has generally been agreed that it was painted after Van Dyck’s 1633 equestrian portrait of Charles (Royal Collection Trust), in the second half of the decade. Oliver Millar suggested on stylistic grounds the years 1636–7;104 for other authorities a somewhat later date is preferable.105 Although there was no uniformity in styles of dress at court, it can be said that there was a trend – perhaps led by the king – towards smaller collars as the 1630s progressed, allowing a dating closer to the end of the decade.106 While the painting was most likely commissioned without any specific event in mind, it is best to see it in the context of the king’s religious conflict with the Scottish Covenanters and his determination to impose his will on his subjects north of the border. Already by the summer of 1637, the king had stated ‘I mean to be obeyed’ in the matter of enforcing the use of the new prayer book for Scotland.107 A year or so later the king issued orders for military preparations, and the king’s army finally marched north in May 1639.108 It is in these circumstances that the portrait should probably be placed. While there is no hint of such troubles in Van Dyck’s three‐quarter‐length portraits of Sir William and Lady Mary Killigrew (London, Tate Britain) which bear the dates 1638,109 their landscape backgrounds, particularly that of the tree in the portrait of Sir William, recall the middle‐ground view in the equestrian portrait of Charles (fig. 14).

Fig. 14

Anthony van Dyck, Portrait of Sir William Killigrew, 1638. Oil on canvas, 105.2 × 84.1 cm. London, Tate, inv. T07896. © Tate

The Execution of the Portrait

As is to be expected of a royal commission, Van Dyck here gave of his best. Working from a modello required few alterations in the rendering of the sitter and horse – although he paid particular attention to the horses’ gait – but he had more freedom when it came to the background.

The dominant impression is of the shimmering fawn of the horse’s coat set off against the sky with its high clouds, and the autumnal green of the foliage. Demanding attention is the closely observed head of the horse, the eye alert and intense, in contrast to the royal face seemingly obdurate, its features enlivened with shades of pink and the ginger of moustache and short beard. The colour scheme is cool with only two areas of warmer reds. Van Dyck’s intention concerning the saddle, picked out here and there in blue paint, remains unclear (see Technical Notes). The servant’s red tunic is executed with unusual freedom and the leaves of the trees are loosely painted. The artist was content to leave the foreground largely bereft of detail.

Preparatory Work

Whereas there are preparatory drawings for the Royal Collection equestrian portrait of 1633, none is now extant for the National Gallery painting (see also above). Most likely the artist would have made studies of the horse, as he had done for the earlier equestrian portrait, and of the king, who was to be depicted from a novel angle and on horseback. A drawing of the horse (London, British Museum), where the rider is sketchily blocked in, is not authentic;110 it could be a pastiche, but possibly is a copy after one of the modelli the artist is recorded to have made, one of which was described by van der Doort. This modello has been identified, with some qualification, with the painting in the Royal Collection Trust (fig. 15);111 but although likely to be contemporary and long generally accepted, it is very probably not autograph because the handling, as far a judgement permits beneath the discoloured varnish, is too weak.

Fig. 15

Anthony van Dyck (and studio?), Charles I on Horseback, late 1630s? Oil on canvas, 96 × 86.3 cm. The Royal Collection / HM King Charles III, RCIN 400571. Royal Collection Trust / © His Majesty King Charles III, 2024

The painting which van der Doort described as the modello would have been unusually large for a work of this purpose – even if intended as a presentation modello – thus unique in Van Dyck’s oeuvre and untypical of his working procedure. Relevant perhaps is the sketch (Oxford, Ashmolean Museum) catalogued by van der Doort as the ‘long narrow peece ... made for a modell for a bigger peece ...’ showing the procession of the Knights of the Garter which Van Dyck had painted for the king at about this time.112 But this work is quite unlike the Royal Collection painting; possibly the surveyor mistook for a modello a small‐scale reduction such as the Venetia, Lady Digby (London, National Portrait Gallery).113 At all events the Royal Collection work echoes the execution of the National Gallery portrait rather than prepares for it, and thus is better thought of as a reduced copy (see further below).

Interpretation

Both equestrian portraits of the king by Van Dyck, who popularised this formula for expressing regality at the English court, were designed primarily to impress and to convey the supremacy of Charles’s rule. That of 1633, the year when Charles – crowned king of England in 1625 – had his coronation in Edinburgh as king of Scotland, also celebrated this dynastic triumph. The National Gallery painting conveyed his authority both as king of Great Britain and as defender of the faith.

The lasting relevance of the equestrian formula stemmed back to the antique statue of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius on the Campidoglio, Rome,114 but (as already mentioned) a more relevant source for the National Gallery painting was Titian’s portrayal of Emperor Charles V at the battle of Mühlberg.115 In this way, it shared in the tradition of the miles christianus (Christian knight) in both its Erasmian and Lipsian manifestations.116

This rich theme could well explain the garniture in the present painting, which in fact would have been ineffectual both for the joust and the contemporary battlefield (see above). Rather, it met with the king’s approval because, devised by Van Dyck relying on recognisable Greenwich designs, it had a symbolic resonance signifying the Christian knight’s ‘whole armour of God’ (Epistle to the Ephesians, 6: 13) and his martial persona. Another dimension is afforded by the Lesser George, the badge of the Order of the Garter, which might suggest the king acting as a chivalric knight.117

The painting can also be seen as developing in the same vein a recent analogy, that of Rubens’s Landscape with Saint George and the Dragon (Royal Collection Trust), which had recently been acquired for Charles’s collection.118 In the guise of Saint George, King Charles overcomes the dragon that symbolises opposition to his kingdoms and his religion. To the right, a squire holds the saint’s flag of a red cross on a white ground, which was also the English ensign. These are the colours of the panache on the close helmet in NG1172. Immediately above the plumes, in the tablet, the king’s style is set out in the shortened form (omitting Ireland and France) devised by his father in the 1604 proclamation of the union of the hitherto separate kingdoms of England and Scotland.119 Thus the king is shown here ready to defend the union by suppressing as the defender of the faith – the royal duty passed down from Henry VIII – the religious division which threatened to destroy it.

A less specific interpretation rests on the recognition that the mastery of a great horse, as displayed here by the king, was referred to in contemporary courtesy literature as a symbol of command over both wild nature and human passions.120 Charles had been praised for his capacity to tame his horses ‘with no bits’ and to subdue ‘their natural and brutish fierceness’.121 Thus with the king in armour and holding the baton of command, his control of the horse may be seen as symbolising his rule over his subjects and his dominion over the realm. In the dedication of his 1658 manual on horsemanship, William Cavendish drew out the parallel between the relationship of horse and rider and that of the king and his subjects: ‘a King, being a good Cavalier, will know so much better how he will govern his people, when he should recompense them or chastise them; when he should keep them under a tight rein or when he should give them more freedom; when he should aid them gently or when it would be appropriate to spur them on.’122

Reception

With the 1st Duke of Marlborough’s expressed desire to acquire the present painting we can begin to gauge how much it was admired. Following subsequent praise by visitors to Blenheim, a fuller appreciation appeared in the preface to the catalogue of the 1815 exhibition at the British Institution, which noted ‘how much delicacy of execution [in the painting] may be combined with breadth, and with dignity’. Its qualities were appreciated by the greatly influential Sir Joshua Reynolds PRA (1723–1792), who had pronounced it to be ‘the finest equestrian portrait which had ever been produced’.123 But the far lesser known Robert Smirke RA (1753–1845), in his satirical catalogue raisonné of the exhibition, qualified his admiration of the work – ‘... a most magnificent and glorious effort of art’ – by criticising the drawing and anatomy of the horse as well as pointing to supposed over‐cleaning.124 By 1885 Reynolds’s admiration had come to be generally entertained, such that it was selected with Raphael’s Ansidei Madonna from the great collection at Blenheim Palace for acquisition by the National Gallery (see Provenance).

Influence

The impact of NG1172 seems to have been immediate in so far as it evidently inspired a print of Charles I on Horseback by Wenceslaus Hollar (1607–1677),125 rather than as hitherto thought – because the subject is shown on a pedestal – Hubert Le Sueur’s (about 1580–1658) sculpture of Charles I of about 1630–3 now in Trafalgar Square, London (fig. 16).126 Hollar may have had access to Van Dyck’s studio and seen the composition, either before the present painting was moved to Hampton Court or the modello to the Chair Room in Whitehall Palace. An early derivation on the Continent could be the portrait of Cardinal‐Infante Ferdinand (Paris, Musée du Louvre), but there are difficulties in the way of this, not least its uncertain status.127 The miniaturist Bernard Lens III (1682–1740) modified the composition – after he had made the copy of the painting in 1720 (Herefordshire, Croft Castle, see Provenance) – for his portrait of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough,128 and again in 1724 for his portrait of Sir Thomas Tipping (formerly Marquess of Downshire collection).129 Thomas Gainsborough’s portrait of Lieutenant General Philip Honywood (Sarasota, John and Mable Ringling Museum) is based on Lens’s painting of the latter, which he would have seen during his years in Bath.130 Earlier, the composition had been adapted for such sitters as kings Charles II and George III,131 but these portraits seem to have been mainly inspired by the so-called modello in the Royal Collection Trust, which was restituted to the Crown probably from 1688.

Fig. 16

Wenceslaus Hollar, The Statue of King Charles the Ist at Charing Cross, late 1630s. Etching, 40 × 31 cm, first state. London, British Museum, inv. 1858,0417.1032. © The Trustees of the British Museum

Early Copies

Of the greatest moment is the painting in the Royal Collection, which is traditionally assumed to be identical with a modello that Van Dyck supposedly painted in preparation for NG1172 (fig. 15).132 The modello was catalogued as such when located in the Chair Room at Whitehall in the inventory made by van der Doort (see Provenance, above). But the provenance from Charles I is not certain, as the Chair Room painting cannot be identified unequivocally with either one of the two versions later listed in the inventory of James II.133

The Royal Collection painting differs from NG1172 in the relation between horse and rider and the landscape. The landscape takes up less space and the king’s head is closer to the painting’s top.134 The painting also diverges in the height and position of the moribund tree from which the tablet is hanging, the design of the tablet’s frame,135 the figure of the foot‐servant and in the helmet, whose visor is open.

Suggestions of pentimenti or uncertainties in the Royal Collection copy are visible: for example, in the position of the king’s right arm and shoulder, the insignia of the Garter and the king’s left foot. These have led some authors to accept the picture as Van Dyck’s modello.136 A few revisions and changes can be found in both paintings. The poorly executed culet was added to the king’s armour in both compositions. The infrared reflectogram of NG1172 (fig. 1) shows an area across Charles’s chest, in a similar location to the blue sash visible in the Royal Collection picture, that appears lighter than the surrounding armour. There are strokes of lighter paint in this area that would explain the appearance in infrared but it is not impossible that there was once a blue sash in the National Gallery painting.

It is doubtful whether the differences listed above would have been such as to warrant a request for a second preparatory sketch, for van der Doort described the painting in the Chair Room as the first modello. This implies that a second was required, perhaps either because the first was too sketchy or because the proposals could be improved. But the main reason for doubting that the Royal Collection painting is that described by van der Doort is the poor handling – evident under the discoloured varnish – which should not be accepted as Van Dyck’s. Thus, rather than it being a modello, it seems probable that it was executed in the studio at the same time as Van Dyck was working on the National Gallery’s painting.

Another copy (Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado),137 but full‐scale, may also have been made in the studio. Díaz Padrón has recently claimed it to be autograph,138 as does the current Prado Museum digital catalogue, believing that there were originally two versions in Charles I’s collection, one at Hampton Court, the other at Somerset House. The likelihood, however, is that they were one and the same (see Provenance). Smaller early copies were formerly at Ickworth,139 and in the Clarendon Collection.140

Framing

NG1172 was reframed in 2020 in a replica of a seventeenth‐century northern European cabinetmaker’s frame.141 There is no record of how the painting was framed when it was bought from the Duke of Marlborough in 1885.142 Presumably it had a frame similar to that on Rubens’s Lot and his Daughters (New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, on loan from the Parker Foundation) at the time of its recent sale, which was made to complement the furniture at Blenheim Palace.143

Although nothing is known of the original frame, it is noteworthy that van der Doort recorded the modello in ‘a carved and all over gilded frame’.144 In addition, the tablet hanging on the tree in NG1172 appears to have a gilded Sansovinesque frame with a scrolling leaf design. It is possible that the present painting was also displayed in a carved and gilded frame, likely in an early Auricular style, since it must have hung in the company of the greatest works in the collection (for example, the paintings from Mantua which were magnificently framed in gilded and polychrome patterns).145 Van Dyck himself supplied or even designed frames for important commissions, probably assisted by the painter, dealer and framemaker George Geldorp (1590/95–1665).146 In about 1638 Van Dyck billed the king for various pictures for which he supplied frames, including a portrait of the king intended as a gift for William Murray which can probably be identified with the painting at Ham House, Richmond, Surrey, still in its original frame.147

Notes

1 See fig. 17, in Roy 1999, p. 77. (Back to text.)

2 The structure and composition of the preparatory and paint layers described here were investigated through analysis of paint cross‐sections using optical microscopy (OM) and scanning electron‐microscopy with energy dispersive X‐ray analysis (SEM‐EDX). The initial findings, published in Roy 1999, were expanded within an investigation carried out during the latest conservation treatment (M. Melchiorre, National Gallery Scientific Department Report: Results of Inorganic Analysis, 2023, unpublished). (Back to text.)

3 The layer contains small amounts of iron oxide associated with a range of clay minerals (aluminosilicates and potassium feldspar), as well as titanium‐rich mineral impurities (possibly titanium dioxide). Some calcium carbonate is also present, which could be a mineral impurity of the earth pigment or have been added as an extender. (Back to text.)

5 Colourless minerals identified in the priming, and likely to be associated with the earth pigments, include aluminosilicates, potassium feldspar, silica and calcium carbonate. Titanium‐rich mineral impurities appear to be specifically associated with the yellow ochre. (Back to text.)

7 In the infrared images it is difficult to distinguish sketching lines from other linear marks made during painting. Based on the examination of infrared photographs and paint cross‐sections, Van Dyck’s initial sketch had been previously described as having been ‘worked up in fairly broad brushstrokes of a dark brown translucent paint’ (Roy 1999, p. 77). More recent studies were not able to confirm the colour of this paint. None of the existing cross‐sections includes a sketch line. (Back to text.)

8 See, for example, Lord John Stuart and his Brother, Lord Bernard Stuart (NG6518); Roy 1999, pp. 80–1. (Back to text.)

9 This change and a small revision to the collar were discussed in Martin 1970, p. 41, under no. 1172. More recent studies suggest that the appearance of the collar in the infrared images might relate to the way Van Dyck modulated shadows and highlights, rather than an actual revision. (Back to text.)

10 X‐ray diffraction (XRD) analysis of a sample from the highlights on the stirrup indicates that Van Dyck used the more common variety of lead‐tin yellow, today known as ‘type I’ (see the report cited in note 2, above). (Back to text.)

11 The yellow lake consists of a dyestuff from a luteolin‐rich source, such as dyer’s greenweed (Genista tinctoria L.), dispersed on calcium carbonate in the form of natural sedimentary chalk. The dye components of this and other lake pigments were identified by high‐performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), their substrates by SEM‐EDX and FTIR (D. Peggie, National Gallery Scientific Department Report: Analysis of Lake Pigments, 2023, unpublished; D. Peggie, National Gallery Scientific Department Report: Analysis of Selected Cross‐Sections by ATR‐FTIR, 2023, unpublished; and see the report cited in note 2, above). (Back to text.)

12 Further pigments occasionally included in the brown paint to modulate its colour are red ochre, lead‐tin yellow and a greyish‐blue copper‐rich compound, possibly azurite. Umber is a brown earth pigment that, in this case, was found to be associated with titanium‐rich mineral impurities as well as manganese‐rich black particles, probably of pyrolusite. The brown paint contains other colourless minerals likely to be associated with earth pigments (silica, aluminosilicates, potassium feldspar and small quantities of calcium carbonate). (Back to text.)

13 This appears to contradict the idea he had left reserves ‘for details as minor as the grey‐green leaves of the wilting thistle in the lower left corner’; Roy 1999, p. 77. (Back to text.)

14 The cochineal is almost certainly Mexican (Dactylopius coccus Costa) by this date. It is precipitated onto hydrated alumina. (Back to text.)

15 In the red lake, the brazilwood dyestuff is dispersed on calcium carbonate in the form of sedimentary chalk. (Back to text.)

16 The blue pigment was identified using ATR‐FTIR spectroscopy (see note 11, above). (Back to text.)

17 Semi‐quantitative EDX analysis of the smalt confirmed a cobalt content in line with that of seventeenth‐century blue smalt. Based on the degree of leaching of potassium, most of the pigment shows signs of degradation, but there are a few larger particles that are better preserved and still appear blue (M. Spring, unpublished report, National Gallery Scientific Department). (Back to text.)

18 GC‐MS analysis identified heat‐bodied linseed oil in samples from a warm white impasto brushstroke of a distant white cloud; a warm brown glaze stroke over the lower part of the servant’s garment; a warm glaze toning layer over a rock; a yellow highlight from the stirrup; a dark greyish‐blue of the distant landscape and a rich blue of the sky (White 1999). The medium in a sample from a slightly blanched green of foliage was identified as linseed oil, but the extent of heat‐bodying was not reported; partially heat‐bodied linseed oil was reported in a sample of pale crimson paint from the servant’s sleeve. Some pine resin was also detected in this sample from the sleeve and in the warm brown glaze over the servant’s garment, although it is not clear whether this represents an original addition to the paint or later contamination from varnish layers ( ibid. .). Evidence for the use of partially heated pine resin or pitch, possibly used as a translucent brown pigment, was found in the warm glaze toning paint over the rock ( ibid. .). Additional GC‐MS analysis of samples from the red tunic of the servant and warm brown tail of the horse, taken during the 2019 conservation treatment, found the medium to be heat‐bodied linseed oil and did not detect components ascribable to organic brown pigments (see reports (a, b) given in note 11, above). (Back to text.)

19 Ackroyd et al. 2021, pp. 123–33. (Back to text.)

20 See Barnes et al. . 2004, pp. 468–70, no. IV.51. (Back to text.)

21 ibid. ., pp. 462–4, no. IV. 47. (Back to text.)

22 See Millar 1958–60, p. xiv, and Roy 1999, p. 77, fig. 18. (Back to text.)

23 For the dating of the prime text (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Ashmole 1514), a working draft in a scribe’s hand with notes by van der Doort, and of the derivatives, see Millar 1958–60, pp. xix–xx; the bindings of the fair copies are stamped with the date 1639; that of the draft for the Chair Room is estimated to have been made late in that year. (Back to text.)

24 See Millar 1958–60, p. 62, no. 2. (Back to text.)

25 See Thurley 2003, p. 87. (Back to text.)

26 See also Brown 1982, p. 168. (Back to text.)

27 That such a putative plan existed, later to be revived, rests on the fact that Van Dyck’s 1633 equestrian portrait of the king (Royal Collection Trust), which is slightly smaller in height than NG1172, was to be displayed there after the Restoration; see Millar 1982, pp. 50–1, under no. 11. The present painting may have hung there temporarily in 1647, when, as it seems, it was requested by the king with other family portraits during his confinement at Hampton Court; see Thurley 2003, p. 121 and note 12, p. 410 (but in fact the modello may have been sent; see below, under note 133). (Back to text.)

28 See note 31. Matías Díaz Padrón, in Díaz Padrón 2007 and also in Díaz Padrón 2012, vol. II, pp. 486–93, no. 61, has claimed that there were two autograph versions of the present composition, NG1172 and Museo Nacional del Prado, inv. Poo1501 (now described on the Prado’s website as a replica); he claims that this latter painting was that bought by Cárdenas at the Commonwealth sale (see below). But judging from reproductions, it looks to be a copy, probably dating from after the accession of King Charles II in 1660, as the inclusion of a ‘I’ in the inscription would suggest, for which see note 96, below. (Back to text.)

29 Thurley 2021, p. 59. (Back to text.)

30 Griffey 2015, p. 99. (Back to text.)

31 See Millar 1970–2, p. xv. (Back to text.)

32 See ibid. ., p. 316, no. 283: ‘King Charles on horseback. Sr Anth. vandyke. 200 00 00 / Sold to Gerbier 21 June 1650 (SP).’ (Back to text.)

33 ibid. ., p. 269, no. 203. (Back to text.)

34 See Wood 2004; and Peacey 2012, pp. 284–307. (Back to text.)

35 See Brotton and McGrath 2008, pp. 2–3. (Back to text.)

36 See Brown and Elliott 2002, Appendix I, ‘Letters from Alonso de Cárdenas to Luis de Haro’, no. 2, p. 280, and Appendix II, ‘Memoranda of Paintings and Tapestries for Sale’, no. 3, p. 286; for an English translation of the letter see Brotton and McGrath 2008, p. 9, document 2. (Back to text.)

37 See Brown and Elliott 2002, Appendix II, no. 2, p. 285: ‘Otro quadro de más de çinco uaras de alto y quatro / de ancho, poco más a menos, con el retrato del / rey Carlos a cauallo, de mano de Uandic. Tasado en 1 d [ducados] 200’, with the marginal note: ‘Este quadro es la mejor que / hizo Vandik.’ The measurements ‘poco más a menos’ (more or less) must have been estimated from memory as they are far too large (about 417.5 x 334 cm). (Back to text.)

38 See Millar 1963, vol. 1, p. 93, under no. 143. (Back to text.)

39 Van Colen was married to Maria Fourment (1633–1697), daughter of Daniel II Fourment (1592–1648) and niece of Helena Fourment (1614–1673), Rubens’s second wife in 1668. See Baetens 1976, vol. 1, p. 170 and Krempel 1976, vol. 1, p. 222. For the van Colen family and the organisation of the firm, see Baetens 1960, pp. 198–214; for the marriage with Maria Fourment see ibid. ., p. 201; see also Baetens 1976, pp. 126–71, for an account of the firm in Antwerp in the seventeenth century. Gijsbert was the son of Jan Bartholomeus van Colen (1605–1647) and Suzanne Hureau (1611–1677) who lived on the site now occupied by Meir, 50, opposite the Wapper. (Back to text.)

40 See Baetens 1960, pp. 210–11. (Back to text.)

41 The facts of the sale are recorded in a document of 1763, Staatsarchiv München, StAM HR 279‐9, published by Krempel 1976, pp. 227, 229, appertaining to the attempt by van Colen’s heirs to obtain payment of the outstanding debt of 30,000 guilders: ‘Specification / Jener .101. Stuck Mahlereyen, welche Ir: Churfürstlichen Durchlaucht Maximilian Emanuel Herzog in Bayern ao: 1698 von Gisbert van Colen zu Antwerpen um 100000 fl. Flamändischer Münz erkauft haben ... no. 13: “Der König in Engelland zu Pferd in Lebens Grösse”’. The sale is also recorded in a letter of that date from Maximilian Emanuel to his mistress, Agnes‐Françoise Le Louchier (1660–1717), Countess of Arco, see Krempel 1976, p. 222. See also George Vertue (1684–1756) writing in 1721 and relying on a source as yet unidentified: ‘... others, affirm the Picture of King Charles on the Dun Horse is now in the Possession of the Duke of Bavaria, who bought it of myn‐Heer Van Cullen ...’, see Vertue 1930–55, vol. II, p. 147. (Back to text.)

42 Krempel 1976, pp. 235, 236; the dates of the known purchases are 1687, 1690 and 1691, which establish that van Colen was buying on his own account rather than with a view to selling on, and certainly not to Maximilian Emanuel who did not take up his post in the Spanish Netherlands until 1692. For the price of the Equestrian Portrait, see the extract from a letter (in unknown hand) by the imperial administrator, Count Maximilian Carl von Löwenstein‐Rochefort (1656–1718), to the former imperial ambassador of the English court, Count Wenzeslaus Wratislaw of 5 October 1706, printed by Gräff 1922, Appendix, letter V, p. 147. (Back to text.)

43 Baetens 1976, vol. 1, p. 170, where described as a ‘krachtdadige zakenvrouw’ (vigorous businesswoman). She had inherited from her mother Margaretha Hureau (née De Groote) (1590–1670) a half share in one of the largest Antwerp fortunes of the century. See ibid. ., p. 192, with reference to Stadsarchief Antwerpen, Insolvente Boedelskamer IB64 ‘inventaris ende prise van alle ende iegelijcke de meubelen ...’ of 12 May 1670. (Back to text.)

44 For Maximilian II Emanuel as an art collector, see Krempel 1976, Thoma 2019 and Tillmann 2009. (Back to text.)

45 For the war of the Spanish succession and Maximilian II Emanuel’s part in it, see Whaley 2012, pp. 108–19. (Back to text.)

46 For the Stadholder’s expensive lifestyle and the resulting financial problems, see Hüttl 1976, pp. 212–19 and Tröger 1998, pp. 35–41 and 45–54. (Back to text.)

47 See Krempel 1976, p. 222 and Thoma 2019, p. 55. (Back to text.)

48 Dominicus Nollet (about 1640–1734) was employed as court painter on 1 December 1698 specifically to maintain the paintings in the Grande Galerie on the first floor of the palace of Coudenberg; see Huys 2013, p. 114, from which it can be assumed that the important paintings were displayed there. Other palaces available to the governor were Tervuren, which he rented from Olympia Mancini, Countess of Soissons (1638–1708), or Mariemont at Soignies, which his architect Enrico Zuccalli had modernised in 1698. See Tröger 1998, pp. 42–4. (Back to text.)

49 There are no inventories of Max Emanuel’s collection in Munich; the earliest Munich inventories date from 1748 (Residence and Schleißheim) and 1751 (Nymphenburg). See Krempel 1976, p. 221 and Thoma 2019, p. 52. The most important paintings were later displayed in the Grande Galerie in Schleißheim Palace, but construction of it only began in 1702; see Hohenzollern 1980, p. 8. Goldsmith 1954, pp. 78 and 81, stated that the Van Dyck hung in the ‘Great Gallery’ at the Alte Residenz, probably referring to the ‘Schatzgalerie’ (founded by Maximilian I) in the Residence palace. According to Emperor Joseph’s authorisation, printed by Gräff 1922, p. 146, Appendix, letter I, the Van Dyck was in the Kunstkammer before its despatch from Munich. The Kunstkammer, founded by Albert V and looted by the Swedes in 1632, was then described as a store for textiles and furniture. See Seelig 2008, p. 101. NG1172 could have been stored together with the tapestries in the spacious upper rooms of the building (part of it was originally used as the royal stables) next to the Residence. The use of the ‘Marstall and Kunstkammer’ for both the display of curiosities and as a storage for textiles was continued after Max Emanuel’s return to Munich in 1715. See ibid. . (Back to text.)

50 See Hüttl 1976, p. 475 and Tillmann 2009, pp. 81–2. (Back to text.)

51 In a letter to Count Wratislaw of 29 September 1706 Marlborough expresses his pleasure about receiving a positive reply about the paintings: ‘... Quoique la votre me fait croire que celle‐ci ne vous sera pas rendue à Vienne, je dois pourtant vous témoigner le plaisir que m’a fait ce que vous m’écrivez touchant les tableaux, qui est le présent au monde le plus agréable qu’on pourrait me faire’, see Murray 1845, vol. III, p. 156. For a summarised history of the gift, see Krempel 1976, pp. 223–4; see also Gräff 1922, and the Appendix, pp. 146–9, printing the relevant letters. (Back to text.)

52 Marlborough’s interest in paintings is indicated by his attending the auction sale in London in 1692 of the collection of the portrait painter John Riley (1646–1691), as was noted by Constantijn Huygens II (1628–1697); Huygens 1877, vol. 2, p. 29. For the sale see Lugt 1938–87, vol. 1, no. 78 (erroneously under 1691). Marlborough’s daughter Anne was married to the 3rd Earl of Sunderland, who owned important portraits by Van Dyck. (Back to text.)

53 English translation by Nina Cahill. The original letter reads: ‘Lieber Graf von Ötting es hat der Fürst von Marloroug unterdterhandt zu verstehen geben lassen dass ihme sehr angenehm würde sein wan man ihm einige in der Münchnerischen Kunstkammer befindliche Bildter überschicken wurde undterwelchen er absonderlich des Königs Carl in Engelandt Contrafait zu Pferdt von dem Mahler Wondeick gemacht verlangt.’ (quoting from Munich, Reichsarchiv, Fürstensachen Fasc. LXXI), see Gräff 1922, p. 146, Appendix, letter I, undated, probably mid‐September 1706, see ibid. , p. 140. NG1172 also appears in a document listing the five paintings the emperor had given to Marlborough: ‘1. Das Contrafait Carl Stuart zu Pferd, von dem Antoni van Dyeck, so nach des gewesten Schatzmaisters Pistorini damalligen vorwenden, und von dem Kayserl. Administratore daryber an dem Kayl. Geheimden Rhat Herrn Graf von Wratislav underm 5t Oktober 1706 erstatteten bericht Nr. 7 per 4000 species Thaler erkaufft worden sein solle ... dem Duc de Marleborough allergnedigst geschenkt haben, und demselben von dem Englischen Gesanden under denen fürstl. Mahlereyen aussuchen lassen’; see Krempel 1976, p. 237, note 22 (quoting from Munich, Allgemeines Staatsarchiv, Fürstensachen 688, fol. 39ff). (Back to text.)

54 See Goldsmith 1954, pp. 76–7; the letter was first published in Marlborough 1838 vol. 1, pp. 57–9. (Back to text.)

55 English translation by Nina Cahill; the original reads: ‘Übrigens schwindet mir auch aller Geschmack und alle Freude an Bildern, wenn ich daran denke, wie man meine schöne Sammlung in München ausgeplündert hat. Sie werden ohne Zweifel schon wissen, daſz das treffliche Bild von van Dyk, den König von England zu Pferd darstellend, vom Kaiser dem Herzog von Marlborough zum Geschenk gemacht worden ist. Trevisans hat mit eigenen Augen in Brüssel gesehen, wie man es rollte, um es nach England zu schicken, wo es sich jetzt schon befinden mag.’ Letter of 27 March 1708, see Heigel 1884, vol. 1, pp. 189–90 and Krempel 1976, p. 225. (Back to text.)

56 See Hattendorf 2004. A miniature copy by Bernard Lens III (gouache on vellum, 4.83 x 4.13 cm, Croft Castle, Herefordshire, National Trust), dated 12 August 1720, was probably made at Blenheim, where the miniaturist made a series of copies from the collection. See Wieseman 2018 and Logan 1986. Noteworthy is Lens’s uncertainty concerning the saddle, which is depicted for the most part incorrectly as blue but with some areas seemingly shown as worn. Confused too is the rendering of the pommel plate and thigh support in darkish red and blue. (Back to text.)

57 As pointed out by Sir Oliver Millar in a letter to Allan Braham, 24 July 1974 (letter in the National Gallery dossier for NG1172). On 29 January 1708 the Bishop of Carlisle recorded: ‘On Invitation, I dined with Lord Hallifax; where Lord Sunderland, Lord Sommers, Bishops of Ely and Litchfeild and Dr Bentley. Lord Hallifax’s paints in his Dineing and Drawing Rooms exceeding fine; especially that of King Charles I on Horseback, taken amongst the Furniture of the Duke of Bavaria.’ See Nicolson 1985, p. 446; Charles Montagu (1661–1715), created Baron Halifax in 1700 and connected to the Marlboroughs by marriage, had by this time largely retired from politics having been an important member of the Whig Junto. The Marlboroughs lived in an apartment in St James’s Palace, Westminster, from 1695 to 1711; see Hattendorf 2004. (Back to text.)

58 ‘On voit encore dans la même galerie un grand Vandeik tres beau qui représenté Charles I à Cheval et Marie de Medicis peinte en grand, par le même.’ Pierre Jacques Fougeroux de Blaveau, ‘Voyage d’Angleterre, d’Hollande et de Flandre, fait en l’année, 1728’, manuscript, National Art Library, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, p. 109. For Fougeroux de Blaveau see d’Est-Ange 1917, p. 1; see also Vertue 1930–55, vol. IV, p. 138, writing in 1737: ‘the great picture at the end of the Gallery. K Charles on horseback. dun horse. By Vandyke.’ Vertue had earlier noted (in 1721) the painting as owned by the duke and recorded a visit to Blenheim in 1729: ‘Vastly grand ... many pictures ... by Rubens Vandyke. several exceeding fine’; see Vertue 1930–55, vol. II, pp. 99 and 65. See also the list by the 1st Duchess of Marlborough in 1740, British Library, Add. MS. 61473: ‘Inventory of Blenheim & Marlborough House, signed by S. Duchess – 1740’, published in Murdoch 2006, p. 276 (as ‘In the Gallery’ at Blenheim Place). The 1st Duke had left a life interest in Blenheim Palace and Marlborough House to his wife, Sarah (née Jennings or Jenyns), the 1st Duchess, who died in 1744 (his titles having passed to his daughter, Henrietta Godolphin Churchill (1681–1733), suo jure 2nd Duchess of Marlborough). See True and Authentick Copies 1753, pp. 6, 10; Harris 1991, p. 246. (Back to text.)

59 Horace Walpole in Walpole 1762–71, vol. 2, p. 92, mentions the painting at Blenheim, but it is not listed in other sources, for example The New Oxford Guide: Or, Companion Through the University …, London [1759], and [T. Martyn], The English Connoisseur, vol. I, London 1766. (Back to text.)

60 ‘This picture was exhibited at the British Institution in 1815, and had been previous to that time in Marlborough House, St. James’s.’ Scharf 1862, p. 36. (Back to text.)

61 See Plazzotta 2022 and National Gallery Archive, Minutes of the Board of Trustees, NG1/5, 18 March 1884, p. 272. (Back to text.)

62 See Plazzotta 2022 summarising the Trustees’ long debates, and the newspaper reports in the NG dossier for NG1172. (Back to text.)

63 The most recent and also earliest known full‐size example is Robert Peake’s Portrait of Prince Henry on Horseback of about 1606–8 (Parham House, Pulborough, Sussex); see Sharpe 2009, p. 18 and MacLeod 2012, pp. 94–5, no. 28. Earlier engraved equestrian portraits such as Thomas Cockson’s engraving of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, of 1599–1600 have been thought to have been of some influence. For the print, see Hind 1952–64, vol. I, no. 245.12 and British Museum n.d.f. (Back to text.)

64 Van Dyck had already executed other equestrian portraits during his time in Italy and in the southern Netherlands. See Barnes in Barnes et al. 2004, nos II.30 and II.32, and Vey in ibid. ., nos III.66, III.68, III.125 and I.101. (Back to text.)

65 Vey in Barnes et al. 2004, pp. 300–1, no. III.66. (Back to text.)

66 ibid. ., p. 302, no. III.68. (Back to text.)

67 Rubens had used the motif in his lost Equestrian Portrait of Philip IV of Spain, of which a studio copy is in the Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence; see Huemer 1977, pp. 150–4, no. 30; an equestrian portrait of Henri IV of France with ‘his gentleman with a head piece carrying afore him’ was at Greenwich in this period; see Millar in Barnes et al. 2004, p. 468, and Millar 1958–60, p. 195. The motif was derived from Pliny, Historia Naturalis, where is described a portrait of Prince Clytus riding bare‐headed in armour with his squire holding his helmet, as pointed out by Smith 1974, p. 539. (Back to text.)

68 Vey in Barnes et al. 2004, pp. 347–9, no. III.125. (Back to text.)

69 See Liedtke 1989, p. 62. (Back to text.)

70 Glück 1931, pp. 380, 560; Barnes et al. 2004, p. 380, no.III.178; Russel 2021, pp. 123–24, no. 213 (Back to text.)

71 Giovanni Pietro Bellori, in his life of Van Dyck, Bellori 1672, p. 260, recorded that the portrayal of the king on horseback was painted ‘... ad imitatione di Carlo Quinto espresso da Titiano ...’, by which was probably meant the equestrian portrait of the emperor at the battle of Mühlberg of 1548 (Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado). Van Dyck had never seen the original but would at least have known Rubens’s bust‐length copy (London, Courtauld Institute of Art, The Princes Gate Collection) – a work which has actually been attributed to him working after a copy by Rubens, formerly in the collection of Mrs Jack N. Berkman, New York); see Wood 2010, vol. I, pp. 239–40, under no. 132 (and pp. 234–5, no. 131 for the New York version). (Back to text.)

72 Oil on canvas, 303 x 317 cm, inv. P001178; Museo Nacional del Prado 2021. (Back to text.)

73 Much appreciated has been the advice from Dr Malcolm Mercer, Curator of Tower Armouries and Art, and Keith Dowen, Assistant Curator of Armour at the Royal Armouries Museum, Leeds, in emails of February and March 2023; also to be thanked for helpful advice is Dr Tobias Capwell, former Curator of Arms and Armour at the Wallace Collection, London. For the type of jousting armour Van Dyck’s depiction is based on see Royal Armouries n.d. (Back to text.)

74 Millar in Barnes et al. 2004, p. 436, no. IV.9 (Back to text.)

75 ibid. ., pp. 485–6, no. IV.69. (Back to text.)

76 ibid. ., pp. 608–9, no. IV.230. (Back to text.)

77 As kindly pointed out by Mercer and Dowen in an email of 2 March 2023 (see note 73); for a culet depicted by Van Dyck, see his portrait of Albert de Ligne, Prince of Arenberg and Barbançon (Norfolk, Holkham Hall); Vey in Barnes et al. 2004, pp. 300–1, no. III.66. (Back to text.)

78 Millar in Barnes et al. 2004, pp. 566–7, nos IV.176 and 177. (Back to text.)

79 The rules for wearing the badge of the order were recorded by Elias Ashmole (1617–1692) in Ashmole 1672, pp. 226–8, including that, followed here, for the Lesser George in ‘Pictures of the Soveraign ... in Armour’, ibid. . p. 228. (Back to text.)

80 See Martin 1970, p. 44, note 1. (Back to text.)

81 See Dowen 2019, p. 72 and Norman and Barne 1980, p. 19. Contemporary military writers agree on the unsuitability of the rapier for war. For examples see ibid. ., and Norman 1989, p. 256. (Back to text.)

82 Millar in Barnes at al. 2004, p. 473, no. IV.55. (Back to text.)

83 There is no evidence that the traditional identification of the servant with Sir Thomas Morton is more than anecdotal. See Walpole 1826–8, vol. 2, p. 214 (‘K. Charles I. on horseback, his helmet supported by Sir T. Morton.’). This was repeated by John Smith, see below, and Passavant 1833, p. 177. However, an officer of that name is recorded in the Regiment of Foot in the first Bishops’ War of 1639. See Sharpe 1992, p. 800 and Plant 2017. John Smith also described a background battle in NG1172, to support the identification of the attendant: see Smith 1829–42, vol. 3, p. 77, no. 255: ‘The king is attended by his equerry, Sir Thomas Morton, on foot, bearing his helmet. A skirmish of cavalry is seen in a distant part of the landscape, which forms the back‐ground.’ (Back to text.)

84 See Cavendish 1743, vol. I, pp. 29–30; this is a translation of La Méthode nouvelle et invention extraordinaire de dresser les chevaux...Par le tres‐noble, haut, et tres‐puissant Prince Guillaume Marquis et Comte de Newcastle, Antwerp 1658, written while Cavendish was in exile in Antwerp, 1642–60. (Back to text.)

85 For Cavendish’s biography, see Hulse 2004; see also Walker 2020, pp. 146ff. (Back to text.)

86 See the inscribed verse on the pedestal supporting the Earl of Newcastle on horseback, designed by Abraham van Diepenbeeck (1596–1675), engraved by Peeter van Lissebetten (1610–1678), and pl. 2 of Cavendish 1658. (Back to text.)

87 See Loch 1986, pp. 64–5. (Back to text.)

88 See the English translation, Cavendish 1743, vol. I, p. 21. In the Duke of Newcastle’s second book on horsemanship of 1667 in English (based on his 1658 French publication but not a translation), Cavendish wrote at greater length: ‘If he be Well Chosen, I assure you, He is the Noblest Horse in the World: First, There is no Horse so Curiously Shaped ... He is the most Beautiful that can be ... He is of great Spirit, and of great Courage, and Docil: Hath the Proudest Walk, the Proudest Trot, and Best Action in his Trot ... and Fittest for a KING in a Day of TRIUMPH to Shew himself to his People ... of any Horse in the World.’ Cavendish 1667, p. 50. (Back to text.)

89 See Cavendish 1743, vol. I, p. 20. (Back to text.)

90 See Ettinghausen 2006, p. 88, note 39. (Back to text.)

91 See Loch 1986, Appendix, pp. 244–7. (Back to text.)

92 See for example the equestrian portraits of Philip IV of Spain of about 1635, as in note 72; of Philip III, about 1635, (inv. P001176), Museo Nacional del Prado 2022b; and of Queen Margaret of Austria, about 1635 (inv. P001177), Museo Nacional del Prado 2022c. (Back to text.)

93 See Cavendish 1658, pl. 13, Lucas Vorsterman II (1624–1666/7) after A. van Diepenbeeck, and ibid. ., pl. 39, Theodor van Kessel (1620–1660) after A. van Diepenbeeck. Similar examples in the Tower of London are illustrated by Dufty 1968, pls clix (vi.327a), clxiv (vi.352), clvi (vi.155). Three sets of harness for saddle horses supplied by Charles Tennant, saddler, were in the sale of Charles I’s possessions; two ‘with richly embroidered velvet ... carnation and green’ were valued at £20 and £30; see Norman 1989, p. 360. (Back to text.)

94 For the protection of a war saddle – the saddle steels – see Pyhrr et al. 2005, pp. 60–2, no. 29. (Back to text.)

95 See Adamson 1994, p. 175; for a review of the motif of the tablet hanging from a tree see Raatschen 2003, pp. 113–18; for the tree of honour or tree of chivalry see ibid. ., pp. 115ff; an earlier example is Nicholas Hilliard’s Portrait of George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland of about 1590 (Greenwich, National Maritime Museum); another, to be dated a decade or so later than NG1172, is The Royal Oake of Brittayne, frontispiece to Clement Walker, Anarchie Anglicana, or, The History of Independency, the Second Part, 1649, etching and engraving, 17.3 x 23.3 cm, London, British Museum, inv. 1870,0709.283, British Museum n.d.e. Adamson believed that the tree from which the tablet is suspended was an oak, thus ‘alluding to a repertory of images in which the oak was sacred to Jove’. But the tree, which is dead, is not necessarily an oak; the dead tree could rather refer to a ‘Ruinosa Respublica’, as Raatschen relates: Raatschen 2003, p. 113. But whether Van Dyck had intended any symbolic reading of the trees seems uncertain. (Back to text.)

96 Seemingly unique is the inclusion of the numeral I after Charles’s name; this is a solecism and does not occur in any coinage or medal of the first King Charles, for which see Peacock 1999, figs 9.1–8, or of the first King James, for example. Technical examination has shown that the part of the tablet where the I is painted has been restored. (Back to text.)

97 See no. 462 of the inventory of 1689 of the collection of Gaspar de Haro y Guzmán, printed by Burke and Cherry 1997, part 1, p. 855, no. [437] 462: ‘Un Rettrato del Ynfante Cardinal a Cavallo en Un pais donde ay Un Arbol grande donde esta Colgado Un Letrero orig.l de Vandique ...’. (Back to text.)

98 Pen and brown ink, with grey‐brown wash and watercolour, 19.5 x 23.6 cm (inv. Oo,9.50), to be dated probably around 1635 following the artist’s return to England from Flanders. See Strong 1972, pp. 77–81 and Batchelor in Hearn 2009, p. 168, no. 88. (Back to text.)

99 See the study of a corn sow thistle and other plants, pen, brown ink with grey‐brown wash on paper, 21.2 x 32.5 cm, London, British Museum, inv. 1885,0509.47, for which see Brown 1991, p. 270, no. 85, and Batchelor in Hearn 2009, p. 167, no. 87. See also Hennen 1995, p. 137; she mistook this plant to be the emblem of Scotland. (Back to text.)

100 For Keirincx’s commission and possible connections to the First Bishop’s War see Townsend 2003. (Back to text.)

101 Millar in Barnes et al. 2004, pp. 464–6, no. IV.48. (Back to text.)

102 Millar in ibid. ., p. 470, under no. IV.51; he described the rendering as the ‘most sumptuous, impressive and romantic portrait of the King’. (Back to text.)

103 See note 23, above. (Back to text.)

104 See Millar in Barnes et al. 2004, p. 470, under no. IV.51. (Back to text.)

105 Strong 1972, p. 20, proposed around 1638; Brown 1982, p. 168, 1637 or 1638; Liedtke 1989, p. 263, about 1638; Hennen 1995, p. 145, about 1638; Roberts 1999, p. 17, caption to fig. 20, about 1637/8, followed by Shawe‐Taylor 2018, p. 244. On the other hand, Díaz Padrón 1975, p. 491, under no. 1501, proposed 1635–7, and Larsen 1980, p. 115, no. 828, suggested 1635–6. (Back to text.)

106 The generalisation has to be treated with caution as for instance in the double portrait of Mountjoy Blount, 1st Earl of Newport and Lord George Goring (Newport, Rhode Island, The Newport Restoration Fund), where both wide and narrow collars are worn. See Millar in Barnes et al. 2004, pp. 563–4, no. IV.172. (Back to text.)

107 See Sharpe 1992, p. 789. (Back to text.)

108 ibid. ., pp. 797–802. The king’s leadership of the army was recorded in Wenceslaus Hollar’s print of 1639, showing the king brandishing his commander’s baton on his horse that performs a curvet; see Turner 2009–12, part I, p. 267, no. 271. (Back to text.)

109 See Millar in Barnes et al. 2004, pp. 543–4, nos IV.147, 148. (Back to text.)

110 Pen and brown ink with brown wash, heightened with white (partly oxidised), on blueish‐grey paper, 28 x 23.9 cm (inv. 1885,0509.45), not included by Horst Vey in Vey 1962, and rejected, inter alia, by Millar in Barnes et al. 2004, p. 171, under no. IV.52. There is a water stain at the top of the sheet and the face is abraded; the figure was only very lightly sketched in. Maybe, if a copy, the figure was not a record of the king and the drawing was rather a study of the horse controlled by a groom of the royal stables. (Back to text.)

111 See Millar in Barnes et al. 2004, p. 470–1, no. IV.52, where its status as a modello is maintained, even though in ibid. ., p. 510, under no. IV.99, it is referred to as ‘a small scale version’. See recently Ackroyd et al. 2021, p. 120 also accepting the painting as the modello. (Back to text.)

112 See Millar in Barnes et al. 2004, p. 476, no. IV. 59. (Back to text.)

113 ibid. ., pp. 508–10, no. IV.99. (Back to text.)

114 As frequently suggested, see for instance Liedtke 1989, p. 62, and Adamson 1994, pp. 161–2. For the statue, now Musei Capitolini, Rome, see Bober and Rubinstein 2010, pp. 223–5, no. 176. (Back to text.)

115 See note 71. Less than convincing is the view that the pictorial invention derives from Albrecht Dürer’s engraving Knight, Death and the Devil (for the engraving see Schoch, Mende and Scherbaum 2001, pp. 169–73, no. 69), as has been suggested by, for instance, Moffit 1983, pp. 82–3 and Stewart 1983, pp. 58–60. (Back to text.)

116 For Erasmus see Moffitt 1983, pp. 83–4; and see Rosenthal 1993, pp. 93, 102: ‘In terms of the Lipsian programme, the armed hero functions as both an image of the man of virtue ... and as the state leader whose military power can repress the forces of revolt ...’. (Back to text.)

117 Adamson 1994, p. 170, saw him in this guise wearing armour for the tilt and defending the Caroline peace. (Back to text.)

118 See also Moffitt 1983, p. 85 and Hennen 1995, p. 142; for the painting, see Adler 1982, pp. 119–23, no. 35; White 2007, pp. 215–25, no. 63. (Back to text.)

119 See Martin 2005, vol. I, pp. 208–9. For the full royal style in Caroline coinage and medals, see Peacock 1999, pp. 181–6. (Back to text.)

120 Sharpe 2009, p. 18. (Back to text.)

122 See the dedication in Cavendish 1658, here translated and transcribed by Walker 2020, p. 157, note 60: ‘un Roy, etant bon Cavalier, scaura beaucoup mieux comme il faudra gouverner ses peoples, quand il faudra les recompsenser, ou les chattier; quand il faudra leur tenir la main serree, ou quand la relacher; quand il faudra les aider doucement, ou en quell temps il sera convenable des les eperonner.’ Cavendish continued that ‘un Prince nest jamais accompagne de tant de majesté, mesmement sur son throne, comme ill est sur un beau cheval’; ibid. . (Back to text.)

124 Smirke 1815, pp. 10–11. Doubtless some cleaning would have taken place over the years, but no record of such has been published. (Back to text.)

125 See Turner 2009–12, part II, p. 303, no. 686, late 1630s; etching, 40 x 31 cm, first state, London, British Museum (inv. 1858,0417.1032). The lettering identifying the image with the statue at Charing Cross was only added in state V. (Back to text.)

126 See Roberts 1999, p. 29. The Le Sueur was at the time in Roehampton, near London; see Avery 1980–2, pp. 146–7. (Back to text.)

127 Oil on canvas, 318 x 243 cm. See Foucart 2009, p. 133. For the latest discussion on the painting see Blaise Ducos in Ducos 2023, no. 23. The latter suggests that the painting was begun by Van Dyck in Antwerp in November 1640, was then worked on by Gaspar de Crayer (1584–1669) and left unfinished because of the death of the sitter in 1641. Judging only from a scan, this thesis seems questionable, and perhaps the work is indeed no more than an old pastiche as Burchard supposed. It is to be noted that Matías Díaz Padrón in Díaz Padrón 2012, vol. II, pp. 711–12, no. A.75, had suggested that the painting was a copy of a lost original executed by Van Dyck either in 1634–5 or 1641. (Back to text.)

128 Whereabouts unknown; Lens’s miniature was exhibited in The Age of Walnut: Loan Exhibition in Aid of the Royal Northern Hospital at 25 Park Lane [London], February 23rd to April 4th (inclusive) 1932 (catalogue with an introductory note by Edward Frederic Benson [London 1932]), no. 425, when lent by Peregrine Francis Adelbert Cust, 6th Baron Brownlow (1899–1978), Belton House, Lincolnshire, but it is not reproduced in ArtUK, National Trust, Belton House, consulted 10 February 2023, nor was it offered in The Lord Brownlow and the Trustees of the Brownlow Chattels Settlements sale, Christie’s, Belton House, 30 April–2 May 1984. (Back to text.)

129 Sold at Sotheby’s, London, 6 July 2022, lot 47, see Sotheby’s 2022. (Back to text.)

130 Millar in Barnes et al. 2004, p. 470, under no. IV.51. (Back to text.)

131 ibid. ., p. 471, under no. IV.52. See for example Joseph Highmore’s (1692–1780) Equestrian Portrait of King George II, about 1743–5, London, Tate Britain, inv. T04944, Tate n.d.; or William Beechey’s (1753–1839) George III on Horseback, London, British Library, inv. BLWA 80, Art UK n.d. (Back to text.)

132 Oil on canvas, 96 x 86.3 cm. See Millar in Barnes et al. 2004, pp. 470–1, no. IV.52 (here with the wrong measurements). (Back to text.)

133 The modello was sold (as from Hampton Court) for £46 to Robert Boulton, a prolific purchaser at the sale, on 22 November 1649. See Millar 1970–2, p. 206, no. 332. James II’s inventory of 1688 lists two versions of the subject: ‘By Vandyck. King Charles the First, upon a dun horse’ (Catalogue of the collection … James II, 1758, p. 31, no. 359) and ‘Vandyck. King Charles the First, on a dun horse; at Hampton Court’ ( ibid. ., p. 91, no. 1076; and for both see Millar 1963, p. 95). Probably in the reign of William III there was at Kensington ‘King Charles the first upon a dun Horse, small figure’ after Van Dyck. For the inventory see Millar 1963 with reference to Vertue, Inventory no. 30, Kensington, f. 9. It is not known if the CR brand is on the reverse of the Royal Collection Trust picture, as the canvas is lined. (Back to text.)

134 A strip of canvas of about 12 cm (3¾ inches) has been added at the top. The measurements given by van der Doort as ‘3 f 1’ x ‘2 f 10’ (or ‘3 f 2 – 2 f 0’, MS. Ash. 1514, f. 85) (see Millar 1958–60, p. 62, note 3: ‘3 f 1’ by ‘2 f 10’ = 94 x 86.3 cm) nearly correspond with those of the Royal Collection painting (96 x 86.3 cm). An indication of cusping at the edge of the original canvas suggests that the canvas strip might have been added after the original had been stretched. The make‐up of canvas seems different, although it could be of the same weave but in a different direction. The ground seems to be of a slightly lighter grey than that of the main canvas, which seemingly has the same double ground as the National Gallery painting (consisting of a red‐brown underlayer with a priming of a light, slightly brownish grey). (Back to text.)

135 The frame around the tablet in the Royal Collection version is of an auricular type with a shield at the top and a mask at the bottom. The tablet bears an indistinct inscription read by Millar in Barnes et al. 2004, no. IV.52, p. 470 as ‘CAROLUS / REX MAGNÆ / BRITANNIÆ’ without the numeral I to be found in NG1172. See above, note 96. (Back to text.)

136 See Millar 1963, p. 95 and Millar in Barnes et al. 2004, p. 471 under no. IV.52. The infrared reflectogram shows a tree in the landscape on the left which has been painted out. Suzanne Casey, Assistant to the Deputy Surveyor of the King’s Pictures, is thanked for making the painting available for inspection in the conservation studio at Hampton Court, and Rosanna de Sancha, Senior Paintings Conservator at the Royal Collection Trust, kindly assisted in the examination and produced the infrared reflectogram for study. Also to be thanked are Anna Reynolds, Deputy Surveyor, and Isabella Manning, former Assistant Curator. (Back to text.)

137 Oil on canvas, 366 x 281 cm, Museo Nacional del Prado 2022a. (Back to text.)

138 Díaz Padrón 2007, pp. 127–40, and 2012, vol. II, pp. 486–93, no. 61. The digital image shows that the far‐distant view has been blocked out; there are differences with NG1172 also in the sky and foliage. The Prado painting also includes the number ‘I’ after ‘Carolus’ (like NG1172, see above). It is to be supposed that this solecism in Charles’s style was added coincidentally and or independently after 1660. The incorrect style also appears in what would seem to be the later inscription on the Roi à la ciasse (Paris, Musée du Louvre), where appears an abbreviation in the style of ‘et cetera’, which appears in British coinage only during the protectorship of Oliver Cromwell (1653–8). For the most recent discussion of the painting see Blaise Ducos in Ducos 2023, no. 18, where the status of the the inscriptions is not discussed. (Back to text.)

139 Sale Sotheby’s, on the premises, The East Wing Ickworth. Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, 11 and 12 June 1996, lot 432, p. 135; sold for £10,350. (Back to text.)

140 See Millar in Barnes et al. 2004, p. 470, who also mentions an early copy formerly at Hitchin Priory, according to Martin 1970, p. 44 then in the collection of Sir Ralph Delme‐Radcliffe. (Back to text.)

141 Parcel‐gilt, painted black and patinated; made by Peter Schade and Stephen Guest and finished by Amanda Dickson. The modified model for this frame was the set of three original frames for a series of paintings by Hendrik Goltzius (Mercury and Minerva, 1611, and Hercules, 1613, Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum), which had been used previously as a prototype for the frame of Van Dyck’s Roi à la ciasse (Paris, Musée du Louvre). See Lynn Roberts, notes in the frame report, National Gallery. (Back to text.)

142 See ibid. . After the painting entered the National Gallery it was framed in a composition copy of a carved wood frame made for several paintings in the Gallery by William Thrale Wright and John Henry Thrale Wright; see Simon 2012. The frame for NG1172 was probably made by Reginald Dolman & Sons, who began working for the National Gallery in 1880. See frame report, National Gallery and Simon 2020. (Back to text.)

143 Sale Christie’s, London, 7 July 2016, lot 12. ‘The ornamentation of the frame is closely related to gilded furniture designed by the cabinetmaker James Moore, who took over the supervision of the furnishing of Blenheim after Sir John Vanbrugh resigned as architect in 1716.’ See the catalogue entry in the Christie’s sales catalogue: Christie’s 2016. (Back to text.)

144 Millar 1958–60, p. 62, no. 2. (Back to text.)

145 For suitable framings in that style see for example the frame around Van Dyck’s Portrait of Lady Frances Cranfield, about 1637, The Sackville Collection (National Trust), Knole; and the more elaborate frame around Van Dyck’s Portrait of George, Lord Digby and William, Lord Russell, about 1637, Althorp, as kindly pointed out by Lynn Roberts. (Back to text.)

146 See the drawing of a motif with a sunflower and scrolling acanthus leaves (pen and brown ink with brown wash heightened with white on paper, 13.5 x 17.2 cm, London, British Museum, inv. Oo,9.51), which may have been intended for the crest of a frame. See British Museum n.d.g. The white highlighting beneath the ornament may indicate the moulding at the top of the frame. See Roberts 2014. For Geldorp see Simon 2022. (Back to text.)

147 See Simon 2013, p. 145, note 12, p. 157: TNA, SP 16/406, item 4, p. 16, ‘Le Roy vestu de noir au Monsr Morre avecq sa mollure’; published in Carpenter 1844, pp. 67–8. While this frame has masks in the top and bottom centre, the frame around the tablet in NG1172 is closer to another Italianate 1630s frame for the Portrait of Queen Henrietta Maria after Van Dyck (Richmond, Surrey, Ham House), ‘with its paired volutes at all four centres and dense scrolling foliage running to rope‐tied triple‐bud corners’. This design is ‘distantly indebted to Sansovino and other Venetian frames characterised by the sculptural use of large‐scale scrolls and volutes, often with festoons of fruit’; Simon 2013, p. 147. (Back to text.)

List of archive references cited

  • London, British Library, Add. MS. 61473: ‘Inventory of Blenheim & Marlborough House, signed by S. Duchess – 1740’, 1740
  • London, Victoria and Albert Museum, National Art Library: Pierre Jacques Fougeroux de Blaveau, ‘Voyage d’Angleterre, d’Hollande et de Flandre, fait en l’année, 1728’
  • Munich, Staatsarchiv München, StAM HR 279‐9: document regarding payments due from sale of paintings by Gijsbert van Colen to Maximilian II Emanuel, governor of the Spanish Netherlands and elector of Bavaria, on 17 September 1698, 1763
  • Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Ashmole 1514: Abraham van der Doort, catalogue of the royal collection, 1637–

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van der Doort 1757
DoortAbraham van derA Catalogue and description of King Charles the First’s capital Collection of Pictures … now published from an Original Manuscript in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, the whole transcribed … by the late ingenious Mr VertueLondon 1757
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List of exhibitions cited

London 1815
London, British Institution, Pictures by Rubens, Rembrandt, Vandyke, and Other Artists of the Flemish and Dutch Schools, 1815
London 2018
London, Royal Academy of Arts, Charles I: King and Collector, 2018

About this version

Version 1, generated from files GM_NC_BC_forthcoming__16.xml dated 30/08/2024 and database__16.xml dated 20/09/2024 using stylesheet 16_teiToHtml_externalDb.xsl dated 30/07/2024. Entry for NG1172 created from design‐ready Word document and prepared for publication.

Cite this entry

Permalink (this version)
https://data.ng.ac.uk/01DA-000B-0000-0000
Permalink (latest version)
https://data.ng.ac.uk/01D9-000B-0000-0000
Chicago style
Martin, Gregory, Nina Cahill, Marta Melchiorre, Paul Ackroyd, Rachel Billinge and David Peggie. "NG 1172, Equestrian Portrait of Charles I". Version 1, September 20, 2024. https://data.ng.ac.uk/01DA-000B-0000-0000.
Harvard style
Martin, Gregory, Cahill, Nina, Melchiorre, Marta, Ackroyd, Paul, Billinge, Rachel and Peggie, David (2024) NG 1172, Equestrian Portrait of Charles I. Version 1. Available at: https://data.ng.ac.uk/01DA-000B-0000-0000 (Accessed: 9 October 2024).
MHRA style
Martin, Gregory, Nina Cahill, Marta Melchiorre, Paul Ackroyd, Rachel Billinge and David Peggie, NG 1172, Equestrian Portrait of Charles I, version 1 (2024) <https://data.ng.ac.uk/01DA-000B-0000-0000> [accessed: 9 October 2024]