You lost your head.
Not you, the reader, but YOU, Charles I, Stuart King of England, Scotland and Ireland.
“Charles I in Three Positions”, 1635-36, by Anthony van Dyke (1599-1641), Royal Collection, Windsor Castle.
“Charles I in Three Positions” was commissioned by Charles I and sent to Rome as a study for Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s bust of Charles. The bust was destroyed in the fire at Whitehall Palace in 1698 but the painting remained in the possession of Bernini’s estate until it was sold in 1802 to a British art dealer and acquired for the Royal Collection in 1822.
There is a copy in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London
One of the most exciting stories of art collecting – the negotiation and purchase of strategic and historic works of art especially of the Spanish and Italian Renaissance and Baroque schools – is the manic, passionate and extensive purchases for and by Charles I (1600-1649), Stuart King of England, 1626-1649.
“Portrait of Charles I Hunting” by Anthony van Dyke, oil on canvas, 1635, age 35.
The painting was paid for by the King in 1638 and is in the collection of the Musée du Louvre in Paris.
Charles I is dismounted from his restless, tired, and yet bowing horse and is attended by two grooms in a beautiful pastoral and countryside setting with the Thames in the distance.
Charles seems rested, communing in nature and in command of HIS countryside, “casually upscale”, in his elegant and rich fabrics, posing as if for the camera, a moment in time yet strategically political.
He stance is confident, balanced, and yet in his wry expression we can detect a slight melancholy that would have been read by his subjects as a sign of wisdom, a royal softness, compassion.
Perhaps a bit of insecurity.
It makes us think. How do we see ourselves, and how do we want to be seen?
Charles had married the daughter of the French King Henry IV and Marie de Medici and sister of his greatest rival, Louis XIII, Henrietta Marie, by proxy at Notre Dame de Paris in May, 1625. The style of his dress – the turned down boots, the long hair, the cavalier hat and short waistcoat – were influenced by the current French fashion.
Queen Henrietta Marie was not only beautiful, but she, too, was a patron of the arts, and advisor to the King, and was steadfast in her love for him and their full and vibrant life that included 9 children. Two became kings.
“Queen Henrietta Marie”, by Anthony van Dyke, 1638, oil on canvas, 71×56, Queen’s Drawing Room, Windsor Castle.
Charles inherited the passion for art collecting from his father, James VI of Scotland who became James I of England, Scotland and Ireland when he inherited the English throne after the death of Elizabeth I in 1603.
Charles’ mother was Queen Anne of Denmark, also a patron of the arts, as was his beloved brother Henry, Prince of Wales, who died at 18 of typhoid fever. In that year, 1612, Charles became Prince of Wales.
Peter Paul Rubens referred to King Charles I as “the greatest amateur of paintings among the princes of the world”.
What is so puzzling is that When Charles inherited the throne, Elizabeth I and James I had depleted the budget. (Seems like an old and continuing story.)
The spending was not only on wars, exploration and colonization but also lavish living. The recovery required more taxation and more monopolies. The lavish style of living continued.
A trip to Spain in 1623 turned Charles’ appetite for art into an addiction. While trying to romance the court of the strictly Catholic, formal and rigid Philip IV (Habsburg) for the hand of the Infanta Maria Anna, sister of Philip IV, Charles witnessed one of the greatest collections of art in Europe. The collection included Titian, Correggio, Bosch, Velasquez, and the titans of the Italian Renaissance.
The Spanish refused the proposal based on religious differences, but gifted Charles, on his way out, a Titian and a Veronese. WOW! “Blessings and safe travels” or “good riddance”?
Upon his return to England, his manic fever for collecting continued. After his marriage to Henrietta Marie in 1625 the collection of the Gonzaga Dukes of Mantua came for sale. Charles bought most of it, taking two years to pay it off.
His art collection was distributed among his palaces – Windsor Castle, Whitehall Palace, St. James Palace, and Hampton Court.
His works were monogramed CP for works collected as Prince of Wales and CR for Charles I, King of England, Scotland and Ireland and HP for works that Henry had purchased.
So, how does a King collect art when, as King, he cannot leave the country?
Charles had advisors, Dukes and Earls, tutors and investors, who collected for themselves and for him.
Georges Villiers was a tutor and collector.
The Duke of Buckingham was a collector and an inseparable companion to Charles until his assassination in 1628.
Also Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, a rich aristocrat who owned 600 paintings (37 were Titians) added to Charles’ collection along with works purchased by James, Duke of Hamilton, collector of Italian art.
These men traveled Europe, making selections and negotiating for paintings of the most well-known and coveted artists and also of living artists who they befriended.
At the time of his death, King Charles I owned 1500 paintings and 500 sculptures.
After his execution, trustees of the King’s estate drew up an inventory of the art works (and personal items) for the Commonwealth to sell. Just the paintings were appraised at £35,000. The Inventory Catalog, prepared by Abraham van der Doorts, in 1638-40, survives in the British archives at Windsor Castle as Abraham van der Doorts Catalogue of the Collection of Charles I.
The sale collected £33,600 for 1410 pictures.
After the Restoration in 1660 Charles II attempted to recover some of the artwork that had already been sold to foreign collectors, most prominently the Musée du Louvre Museum in Paris, the Museo del Prado in Madrid and the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.
One of the most beautiful paintings recovered by Charles II, and later purchased by George III for the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle, is “The Five Eldest Children of Charles I”, 1637, by Anthony van Dyke, oil on canvas, 64×78.
Many of the art works have not been traced and are considered lost, damaged, stolen or hidden.
The collection included works by Leonardo, Raphael, Correggio, Gentileschi, Rubens, Van Dyke, Giorgione, Titian, Bronzino, Tintoretto, Guercino, Andrea del Sarto, Romano, just to mention a few, and numerous other significant works from the Spanish, French, Flemish, Dutch and Italian schools.
Here are a few of the paintings from the collection of Charles I that you may recognize:
“Daniel in the Lions’ Den” by Peter Paul Rubens, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
This brings up the “provenance” of the work.
Provenance traces the path of the work, ownership – when it was purchased from Rubens, and by whom, and who owned it and when they sold it and so on…..This painting was purchased 9 times (once by Charles I) and was transferred in 5 inheritances. It left England in 1963 for a NY gallery and was purchased by the National Gallery of Art.
“Ecce Homo’, Titian, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
“Concert Champêtre”, Titian, Musée du Louvre, Paris
“The Holy Family” (“La Perla”), by Raphael Museo del Prado, Madrid
“Christ Washing the Feet of the Apostles”, Tintoretto, Museo del Prado, Madrid
“St. John the Baptist”, Leonardo da Vinci, Musée du Louvre
REMARKABLE.
Anthony van Dyke (1599-1641) was Flemish. He trained under Peter Paul Rubens and left Antwerp to make his own name. He became court painter to Charles and painted almost the entire court and many other pagan, religious and historical scenes while in London. He died before Charles was executed.