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3 unusual facts about Equestrian Portrait of Charles I


Equestrian Portrait of Charles I

Van Dyck painted one other major portrait of Charles I with a horse: Charles I at the Hunt (Le Roi à la chasse, c.1635, now in the Louvre), which depicts Charles standing next to a horse in civilian clothing, as if resting on a hunt, wearing a wide-brimmed Cavalier hat and leaning on a walking cane, gazing at a coastal scene; a picture of "gentlemanly nonchalance and regal assurance".

In addition to the paintings, a near life-size equestrian statue of Charles I by Hubert Le Sueur was erected at Charing Cross in 1633 (although originally commissioned in 1630 for Lord Weston's garden in Roehampton; it now stands to the south of Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square).

The Royal Collection was dispersed under the Commonwealth, and the painting was sold to Sir Balthazar Gerbier, formerly the king's agent in Antwerp, for £200 on 21 June 1650.



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