Anthony van Dyck
NG 1172 
Equestrian Portrait of Charles I

Gregory Martin, assisted by Nina Cahill, with technical contributions by Marta Melchiorre, Paul Ackroyd, Rachel Billinge and David Peggie, 2024

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

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).

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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).

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.

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.

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