Charles I -- The Very Image of a King

We all know what Charles I looked like, don't we? It was just how Anthony Van Dyck painted him:

Van Dyck's triple portrait is the first image that catches your eye as you enter Charles I: King and Collector at the Royal Academy in London, a terrific exhibition that's chock-full of great works of art.

This show has at its centre two rooms of aggrandising pictures of Charles by his Flemish court painter, on horseback, with his family, in his robes of state. So it comes as somewhat of a surprise to find one or two portraits of the King by other artists that make him appear a little different. There's something slightly wrong with them, you feel, because you're so used to the Van Dyck look.

Gerrit van Honthorst's Charles seems somehow more boyish, less certain of himself, while a full-length view by Daniel Mytens captures some splendid tailoring but doesn't quite give us the self-confidence of a man who believed himself endowed with the divine right of kings and who built up one of the greatest art collections of his day. But of course Charles I was also the King who found himself fighting a civil war with Parliament and was tried and executed for treason. That art collection was broken up and sold off. 

The curators have recreated the splendour to be found in Charles's palaces, reuniting 140 works, the majority from the current Royal Collection, to which many found their way back after the monarchy was restored in 1660, but also from museums like the Prado and the Louvre. There are Titians, Holbeins and a whole room of Mantegna, but Van Dyck takes pride of place.

Here's Charles's Queen, Henrietta Maria, dressed down for a spot of hunting with servant and pet monkey in tow. It's the monumental portraits, though, that really impress, particularly the magnificent Charles I on Horseback with M. de St. Antoine, which shares the RA's Central Hall with two other giant equestrian images.

That triple portrait you see at the start was intended to be used by the sculptor Bernini to model a bust of the King. Cunningly, your view is drawn to the Van Dyck past another marble rendition of Charles, this time by Francois Dieussart. A great beginning, setting the scene along with superb self-portraits by both Van Dyck and his mentor, Peter Paul Rubens.

Charles acquired art from the Spanish court and a huge trove from the Dukes of Mantua, including this second-century Roman statue known as the Crouching Venus:

When Charles's collection was sold off after his execution, this piece went for £600. Displayed nearby, a Correggio of Venus with Mercury and Cupid was sold for £800, one of the highest prices paid for a work from the Royal Collection. It's hung next to a Veronese on a similar theme that fetched just £11....

Not every work was dispersed. The new ruler, Oliver Cromwell, hung on to Andrea Mantegna's nine-canvas series The Triumphs of Caesar, shown here to great effect.

There are more Italian masterpieces to come. Portraits by Bronzino and Franciabigio hang opposite a wall of Titians, including The Supper at Emmaus, now in the Louvre.

But Charles wasn't only interested in Italian art. There are a number of Holbein portraits, including Robert Cheseman, the chief falconer to Henry VIII, on loan from the Mauritshuis in The Hague. 

Charles liked to retire to his cabinet room to study smaller treasures -- miniatures, drawings, medals. And there are some exquisite Holbein drawings on show here that capture a flavour of his retreat, such as this one of Anne Cresacre:

The exhibition ends as it began, with Van Dyck and Rubens. The star attraction in this final room is Cupid and Psyche, the only surviving mythological painting from Van Dyck's time as court artist. If you've seen Andrew Graham-Dixon's recent BBC series on the history of the Royal Collection, you'll know it's his favourite picture among the many thousands of the Queen's artworks. It would have been more satisfying to finish up in some way with Charles himself, but that's a minor quibble.

All in all, this is a brilliant show, far outshining the companion exhibition at the Queen's Gallery on how Charles II rebuilt the Royal Collection after the Restoration. Go and see it, but be warned, you'll need a little patience to get up close to many of the pictures. It's pretty packed in there, and with good reason. 

Practicalities

Charles I: King and Collector is on at the Royal Academy on Piccadilly in central London every day until April 15 from 1000 to 1800, with late opening on Fridays until 2200. Full-price tickets are £20, including a Gift Aid donation. You can book tickets online here. The RA is a few minutes' walk from Green Park and Piccadilly Circus Tube stations.

While you're at the Royal Academy

You can't miss Physical Energy, the equestrian statue by George Frederic Watts currently in the courtyard. Watts was so highly regarded in the late Victorian era that he was dubbed England's Michelangelo. The first bronze of this work was exhibited in the RA courtyard in 1904, and this new cast is on show in London before it's installed permanently at the Watts Gallery in Compton, near Guildford in Surrey.

Images

Anthony van Dyck, Charles I, 1635-6, Royal Collection Trust/(c) Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2017
Anthony van Dyck, Queen Henrietta Maria with Sir Jeffrey Hudson, 1633, National Gallery of Art, Washington. Samuel H. Kress Collection, Photo (c) courtesy National Gallery of Art
Roman, Aphrodite ('The Crouching Venus'), second century, Royal Collection Trust/(c) Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2017

Andrea Mantegna, Triumph of Caesar: The Vase Bearers, c. 1484-92, Royal Collection Trust/(c) Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2017

Titian, The Supper at Emmaus, c.1530, Paris, Louvre Museum, Department of Paintings, Photo (c) RMN-Grand Palais (musée du Louvre) / Stéphane Maréchalle

Hans Holbein the Younger, Anne Cresacre, c. 1527, Royal Collection Trust/(c) Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2017