It is a once-in-a-lifetime experience: the chance to see one of the greatest -- and most fragile -- works of European art before your very eyes. The illustrated manuscript known as the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry contains images that have shaped our view of the late Middle Ages, but it's normally kept under lock and key at the Château de Chantilly, north of Paris. It's only been exhibited twice in the past century. Now newly restored, the glowing pages of Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry are on show to the public for just a few months. "Approche, approche," the Duke of Berry's usher tells the visitors to the great man's table for the feast that will mark the start of the New Year. It's also your invitation to examine closely the illustration for January, one of the 12 months from the calendar in this Book of Hours -- a collection of prayers and other religious texts -- that form the centrepiece of this exhibition in Chantilly. It's su...
There's one image that dominates Charles II: Art & Power at the Queen's Gallery in London, and it's the King himself. After years of Civil War and a puritanical decade of republican rule, the monarchy has been restored. And so here is Charles, channelling Henry VIII in sumptuous scarlet and with glittering new regalia:
Practicalities
The portrait, painted by John Michael Wright in about 1676, 16 years after the Restoration, vividly demonstrates the style of the man who had to rebuild the monarchy, and the royal art collection accumulated by his father (the subject of a separate exhibition now at the Royal Academy) that had been sold off under the Commonwealth.
How Charles II did that is the story of this show, which starts with the final portrait of Charles I, painted a month before his execution in 1649.
As is often the case at the Queen's Gallery, there's a fair amount of exposition in the form of prints and archive material before you get to the more exciting pictures. However, a display early on of new altar plate for the restored monarch's coronation in Westminster Abbey, such as this silver-gilt dish by Henry Greenway, nearly a metre across, gives a taste of the extravagance to come.
The coronation was the most lavish since that of Elizabeth I a century earlier. It was all part of the projection of renewed royal authority: The monarchy was back, better than ever.
And his patronage of the arts was all part of that. Peter Lely was appointed as Charles's court painter, and Lely's pictures of court beauties, including the king's mistresses, somehow sum up the Swinging 1660s. But when it comes down to it, one of his doe-eyed young ladies in a swirl of slightly revealing fabrics is much like another, even if it's Barbara Villiers, mother to several of the king's numerous illegitimate children.
You feel sorry for Charles's Queen, Catherine of Braganza, who failed to produce the requisite heir. Decried on her arrival in England for her old-fashioned Portuguese dress sense, Catherine got the Restoration makeover treatment in this portrait by Jacob Huysmans.
The reconstitution of the Royal Collection proved a blow to those who'd picked up masterpieces after the death of Charles I. Parliament ordered that artworks sold off by the Commonwealth be handed back to the King. Lely was, unsurprisingly, among those to comply quickly. Shockingly for us, some paintings had been sold for hardly any money at all: The charming early 17th-century Flemish Boy Looking Through a Casement, on show in this exhibition, fetched just £3.
A collection of old-master drawings put together by Thomas Howard, the Earl of Arundel, was presented to the King. The exquisite works by Holbein and Leonardo on display in a side room here rather outshine all the flashy Lely portraits.
While still in exile in the Netherlands, Charles had also ordered some new works for the Royal Collection. Among those to be seen here is Pieter Bruegel the Elder's Massacre of the Innocents, one of the highlights of the show.
And in 1660, the Dutch also presented Charles with a gift of paintings, sculpture and furniture designed to strengthen the alliance with England (it didn't actually work; the two countries were at war before long). Reflecting the taste of the time, the "Dutch Gift" had a distinctly Italian flavour, including this 1530s portrait by Giulio Romano of Margherita Paleologo, wife of the Duke of Mantua.
That's one hell of a dress. You feel Charles would have appreciated it.
All in all, this is an interesting show, though perhaps lacking an absolute showstopper of a painting and not quite as thrilling as some others here in the past. You will, though, learn a lot about Charles, how he consolidated his hold on the throne, and his taste in pictures and women. And, of course, get the chance to see the King of Bling himself in all his finery.
Practicalities
Charles II: Art & Power is on until May 13 at the Queen's Gallery, just round the corner from Buckingham Palace and less than 10 minutes' walk from Victoria Station with all its London Underground and main-line rail services.
The gallery is open daily from 1000 to 1730. Full-price tickets cost £11 including an audio guide (very good value by current London exhibition standards) and can be converted into passes giving free readmission for a year -- so that's the chance to see the next two exhibitions for nothing! Tickets can be booked online here.
Images
John Michael Wright, Charles II, c.1676
Sir Peter Lely, Barbara Villiers, Duchess of Cleveland, c.1665
Sir Peter Lely, Barbara Villiers, Duchess of Cleveland, c.1665
Jacob Huysmans, Catherine of Braganza (1638-1705), c.1662-64
Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Massacre of the Innocents, c.1565-67
Giulio Romano, Margherita Paleologo, c.1531
Henry Greenway, Alms dish, c.1660-61
All images Royal Collection Trust/(c) Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2017
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