King Charles I (1600-1649) on Horseback
Sir Anthony Van Dyck (Antwerp 1599 - London 1641)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1641
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
2120 x 1200 mm
Place of origin
England
Order this imageCollection
Petworth House and Park, West Sussex
NT 486181
Caption
This painting was left with the head unfinished in Van Dyck's studio in his house in Blackfriars after his death, and thus part of the bequest to his widow and daughter. It was turned into a finished picture at a late date, some time after 1819, when it was described as ‘a preparation for the finished picture in the Royal Collection.’ This was painted to hang at the end of the gallery in St. James’s Palace, and is now at Windsor. The Petworth version does not feature the figure of Monsieur de Saint-Antoine to the right. The picture was acquired by the 10th Earl of Northumberland, and is described at Northumberland House in 1671 with the note: ‘the face not finished’. This portrait was placed over the single fireplace in Gibbons’s original Carved Room at Petworth.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, King Charles I (1600-1649) on Horseback by Sir Anthony van Dyck (Antwerp 1599 - London 1641), 1641. Full-length portrait riding a white horse, full-length and full face, wearing armour and the Garter ribbon, with his right hand on a baton.
Provenance
Left unfinished in van Dyck's studio on his death, it was acquired by Algernon Percy, 10th Earl of Northumberland (1602-1668) from Sir John Wittewronge, 1st Bt (1618 – 1693) for 'six smale peeces' in April 1646 and is described at Northumberland House in 1671; thence by descent, until the death in 1952 of the 3rd Lord Leconfield, who had given Petworth to the National Trust in 1947, and whose nephew and heir, John Wyndham, 6th Lord Leconfield and 1st Lord Egremont (1920-72) arranged for the acceptance of the major portion of the collections at Petworth in lieu of death duties (the first ever such arrangement) in 1956 by HM Treasury.
Credit line
Petworth House, The Egremont Collection (acquired in lieu of tax by HM Treasury in 1956 and subsequently transferred to the National Trust)
Marks and inscriptions
CHARLES Ist REX (bottom left corner)
Makers and roles
Sir Anthony Van Dyck (Antwerp 1599 - London 1641), artist