Charles I

Charles IAn early copy of a lost Van Dyck portrait, probably the first of the King done by Van Dyck after his arrival in London. No original survives. The best copy is supposed to be that in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Another passed through Christie's, 27 June 1980.

The composition of this canvas is possibly derived from Rubens' cycle of tapestries on the subject of the Eucharist (c

and shared the rule of the world with his brothers Neptune and Pluto

It has been suggested that the musical instruments here are symbolic of love: that the girl is inviting the viewer to strike up an amorous duet

Some of the elements in this sketch and in the final painting seem to reference motifs by Paolo Veronese (the angels lifting the grave's lid)

We are perhaps more aware of the dreamer than the dream

But imagination and interpretation are as much required by an artist when he paints with a single hair as when he wields a two-foot brush

but chains like the one depicted here were not uncommon amongst gentlemen of the later 16th century (the costume is of c

rich mustard yellow

Valenciennes

He visited Rome in 1650-1

which cannot be Verboom's

Falling somewhere between genre and portraiture