Portrait by Anthony Van Dyck 1635-6  for the Sculptor Lorenzo Bernini to make a marble bust of. The bust was to be a Papal present to Queen Henrietta Maria in the hopes that Charles would return England to Rome. A brilliant portrait of a vain, weak man.

King Charles I amassed one of the most extraordinary art collections of his age, acquiring works by some of the finest artists of the past – Titian, Mantegna, Holbein, Dürer – and commissioning leading contemporary artists such as Van Dyck and Rubens.

Yet, following the king’s execution in 1649, his collection was sold off and scattered across Europe. While many works were retrieved by Charles II during the Restoration, others now form the core of museums such as the Louvre and the Prado.

The Royal Academy have brought the collection together again and it is rather remarkable. I didn’t like the Rubens’ – all that writhing flesh – or, surprisingly, many of the Hans Holbein the younger – not up to the standard of paintings like ‘the Ambassadors’ or some of the Tudors’.  Many of the paintings bought from Madrid by Charles and where he spent some time at Court, but the Gonzaga collection  (also bought by him) was wonderful especially the Mantegnas – the Triumph of Caesar – and the Gentileschis.

Three paintings by O. Gentileschi including ‘ Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife’ 1630-32 (left)

In fact, many of the pictures liked by Queen Henrietta.  The paintings she chose for her palace interiors include Correggio’s Holy Family with St Jerome (c.1519) at Greenwich and Jacopo Bassano’s Adoration of the Shepherds (c.1546) at Wimbledon. The Queen also had an affinity for Italian Baroque pictures by Guido Reni and Orazio Gentileschi, with her house at Greenwich decorated with three large history paintings by Orazio, including Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife (c.1630-32) as well as an allegorical ceiling cycle. Religious pictures proliferated in her palaces and chapels, and family portraits were also prominently displayed. The van Dycks are magnificent – was there ever a King who had so many selfies painted?

Two of the many paintings of Charles by Van Dyck.

Family portrait by Van Dyck. Charles I and Henrietta Maria with Prince Charles and Princess Mary (“The Greate Peece”), 1632.

A magnificent show and well worth visiting for the wonderful portraits and sad history involved.