16th-century Paintings Collected by Charles I (1600-1649)

Adam Elsheimer
Witch riding backwards on a Goat
ca. 1596-98
oil on copper
(acquired from an unknown source by Charles I)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Aertgen van Leyden
Martyrdom of St Sebastian
ca. 1530
oil on panel
(purchased by Charles I from Sir James Palmer -
sold in England after the King's execution, but recovered at the Restoration)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Jan Provoost
Virgin and Child with Saints and Donors
ca. 1525
oil on panel (triptych)
(purchased by Charles I from the Gonzaga collection in Mantua)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

François Clouet
Miniature portrait of Elizabeth of Valois, later Queen of Spain
ca. 1549
watercolor on vellum
(presented to Charles I by Theophilus Howard, 2nd Earl of Suffolk)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Lodewijk Toeput
Pleasure Garden with a Maze
ca. 1579-84
oil on canvas
(purchased in Venice for Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset, and subsequently given to Charles I)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

follower of Cornelis Massys
Landscape
ca. 1550
oil on panel
(purchased by Charles I from the Gonzaga collection in Mantua)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Francesco Vecellio (younger brother of Titian)
Lucretia
ca. 1530
oil on canvas
(purchased by Charles I from the Gonzaga collection in Mantua -
at that time attributed to Titian)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

follower of Giulio Romano
Abduction of Europa
ca. 1550-80
oil on panel
(purchased by Charles I from the Gonzaga collection in Mantua)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Jacopo Bassano
Journey of Jacob
ca. 1561
oil on canvas
(acquired from an unknown source by Charles I -
sold in England after the King's execution, but recovered at the Restoration)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Palma il Giovane
Prometheus chained to the Caucasus
ca. 1570
oil on canvas
(inherited by Charles I from his deceased elder brother -
sold in England after the King's execution, but recovered at the Restoration)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Hans Holbein
Portrait of Derich Born
1533
oil on panel
(acquired from an unknown source by Charles I)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Hans Holbein
Portrait of a merchant of the German Steelyard
ca. 1532
oil on panel
(presented to Charles I by Henry Vane)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Hans Holbein
Portrait of William Reskimer
ca. 1532-33
oil on panel
(presented to Charles I by Sir Robert Killigrew)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Hans Holbein
Miniature portrait of Charles Brandon, later 3rd Duke of Suffolk
1541
watercolor on vellum
(presented to Charles I by Sir Henry Fanshawe)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Renaissance Paintings Collected by Charles I (1600-1649)

Andrea Mantegna
Death of the Virgin
ca. 1462
tempera on panel
(purchased by Charles I from the Gonzaga collection in Mantua -
sold after the King's execution to agents for Philip IV of Spain)
Museo del Prado, Madrid

follower of Francesco Francia
St Sebastian
ca. 1480-1500
oil on panel
(acquired from an unknown source by Charles I)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Girolamo Savoldo
Virgin adoring the Child, with two Donors
ca. 1527
oil on canvas
(acquired from an unknown source by Charles I)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Giovanni Cariani
Adoration of the Shepherds
ca. 1515-17
oil on panel
(purchased by Charles I from the Gonzaga collection in Mantua -
attributed to Giorgione until the 19th century)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Francesco Vecellio (younger brother of Titian)
Mystic Marriage of St Catherine
ca. 1520-40
oil on canvas
(acquired in Italy through William Frizell by Charles I -
attributed to Titian until the 20th century)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Correggio
Allegory of Virtue
ca. 1528-30
oil on canvas
(purchased by Charles I from the Gonzaga collection in Mantua -
sold after the King's execution to agents for Cardinal Mazarin)
Musée du Louvre

attributed to Titian
The Lovers
ca. 1510
oil on canvas
(acquired from an unknown source by Charles I -
sold in England after the King's execution, but recovered at the Restoration)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Titian
Salome with the Head of John the Baptist
ca. 1550
oil on canvas
(acquired from an unknown source by Charles I -
sold after the King's execution to agents for Spanish clients)
Museo del Prado, Madrid

Titian
Portrait of Daniele Barbaro
ca. 1545
oil on canvas
(inherited by Charles I -
sold after the King's execution to agents for Spanish clients)
Museo del Prado, Madrid

Palma il Vecchio
Madonna and Child with St Catherine of Alexandria and St John the Baptist
ca. 1527-28
oil on panel
(acquired from an unknown source by Charles I -
sold in England after the King's execution, but recovered at the Restoration)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Jacopo Bassano
Adoration of the Shepherds
ca. 1546
oil on canvas
(acquired from an unknown source by Charles I -
sold in England after the King's execution, but recovered at the Restoration)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Jacopo Bassano
The Flood
ca. 1570
oil on canvas
(purchased by Charles I from the Gonzaga collection in Mantua)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Anonymous painter working in Northern Italy
Fame
ca. 1530
oil on canvas
(sent from Rome in 1635 as a gift of Cardinal Francesco Barberini to Charles I -
sold in England after the King's execution, but recovered at the Restoration)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Anonymous painter working in Northern Italy
Diligence
ca. 1530
oil on canvas
(sent from Rome in 1635 as a gift of Cardinal Francesco Barberini to Charles I -
sold in England after the King's execution, but recovered at the Restoration)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Painted Portraits Collected by Charles I (1600-1649)

Anthony van Dyck
Portrait of George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham and Lord Francis Villiers
1635
oil on canvas
(painted for Charles I)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

"The sitters were the sons of the murdered Duke of Buckingham and were brought up by Charles I with his own children.  The young Duke and his brother served in the Civil War, and Lord Francis, praised by the poet Andrew Marvell for his 'inimitable handsome-ness,' was killed near Kingston-on-Thames.  After the Restoration the Duke was one of the most brilliant and notorious members of the court of Charles II.  Painted for Charles I, the portrait was hung near that of their sister, Lady Mary Villiers, in the Gallery at St. James's Palace.  Horace Walpole said that 'nothing can exceed the nature, lustre, and delicacy of this sweet picture,' which he regarded as 'one of the finest of this master.'" 

Gerrit van Honthorst
Portrait of the family of George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham
1628
oil on canvas
(commissioned by Charles I or otherwise acquired shortly after Buckingham's death)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

"This group portrait of George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham and his family was painted in the same year that the Duke was assassinated.  Charles I's closest confidant and a powerful figure at court, the Duke was a lavish collector and patron of foreign artists, including Peter Paul Rubens and Honthorst.  The Duchess is placed centrally, in front of a rose bush, and smiles at the viewer.  Her baby son (George, soon to be second Duke) grasps at flowers presented by his sister, Mary Villiers (later Duchess of Richmond).  The arrangement of mother and children is probably intended to recall images of the Virgin Mary, Christ Child, and Infant St. John the Baptist."

Artemisia Gentileschi
Self-portrait as the Allegory of Painting (La Pittura)
ca. 1638-39
oil on canvas
(painted while the artist worked in England at the invitation of Charles I -
sold in England after the King's execution, but recovered at the Restoration)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

"Artemisia wears a brown apron over her green dress and seems to be leaning on a stone slab used for grinding pigments, in which the reflection of her left arm is visible.  On one level the works depicts an allegorical figure of Painting, and was described as such in Charles I's inventory.  Artemisia follows the standard emblematic handbook of the period, the Iconologia of Cesare Ripa, cleverly identifying herself as the female personification of painting – something her male contemporaries could never do.  The work is also, however, a particularly sophisticated and accomplished self-portrait.  The position in which Artemisia has portrayed herself would have been extremely difficult for the artist to capture.  In order to view her own image, she may have arranged two mirrors on either side of herself, facing each other."

Rembrandt
Portrait of an old woman (called The Artist's Mother)
ca. 1627-29
oil on panel
(presented to Charles I by Sir Robert Kerr)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Jan van Belcamp
Portrait of Louis XIII, King of France
1636
oil on canvas
(probably painted for Charles I)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

"This picture may be one associated with a warrant dating from 13 January 1636 to pay £300 to Belcamp for his services and expenses on a visit to France at Charles I's command, in order to paint for the King portraits of Louis XIII and his Queen.  It seems likely that Belcamp copied existing portraits and did not have a sitting from Louis XIII himself."

Michiel van Miereveld
Portrait of an old man with a shell
ca. 1606
oil on panel
(inherited by Charles I from his deceased elder brother, Prince Henry -
sold to Sir Peter Lely after the King's execution, but recovered at the Restoration)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

François Clouet
Miniature portrait of Charles IX, King of France, as a boy
ca. 1561
watercolor and bodycolor on vellum
(wrongly believed by Charles I to represent the sitter's brother, Francis II,
first husband of Mary Queen of Scots, who was Charles's grandmother)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Peter Paul Rubens
Self-portrait
1623
oil on panel
(commissioned by the Earl of Danby as a gift for Charles I)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Antonis Mor
Portrait of Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy
ca. 1555-60
oil on panel
(acquired by Charles I)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

"This bold portrait shows the duke aged about twenty five.  Painted life-size in three-quarter, he wears an ornate suit of armour and the collar of the Golden Fleece, of which he was made a knight in 1546.  A strikingly similar suit of armour surviving in the Waffensammlung at Vienna has been proved to have belonged to Emmanuel Philibert and is almost certainly that depicted in this portrait."

attributed to Odoardo Fialetti
Portrait of Doge Giovanni Bembo
ca. 1600-1625
oil on canvas
(bequeathed by Sir Henry Wotton to Charles I -
sold in England after the King's execution, but recovered at the Restoration)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Domenico Puligo
Portrait of a Lady
ca. 1520-25
oil on panel
(sent from Rome in 1635 as a gift of Cardinal Francesco Barberini to Charles I)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

attributed to Girolamo Savoldo
Portrait of a man with a hawk
ca. 1510-15
oil on panel
(purchased by Charles I from the Gonzaga collection in Mantua -
sold in England after the King's execution, but recovered at the Restoration)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Hans Holbein
Portrait of the printer Johannes Froben
ca. 1522-23
oil on panel
(purchased by the Duke of Buckingham and presented to Charles I -
sold in England after the King's execution, but recovered at the Restoration)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Titian
The Allocution of Alonso d'Avalos, Marchese del Vasto, to his troops
1540-41
oil on canvas
(purchased in Italy by agents for Charles I -
sold after the King's execution to agents for Philip IV of Spain)
Museo del Prado, Madrid

David Baudringien
Portrait of Henry Frederick, Prince of the Palatine
(eldest son of Elizabeth of Bohemia, sister of Charles I)
ca. 1629
oil on panel
(originally owned by Charles I - restored to the Royal Collection in 2015)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Devotional Paintings Collected by Charles I (1600-1649)

follower of Jacopo Bassano
Miraculous Appearance of a Female Saint
ca. 1540-90
oil on canvas
(acquired from an unknown source by Charles I)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

"A female figure floating in the sky against an aureole of light is witnessed by a young girl in the landscape, seen in a contemporary red dress at lower left.  Directly below the saint a large crowd is gathered, including two older figures dressed in black, who may be the girls' parents.  On a hill to the right is a small church or oratory.  Although the painting has been repeatedly described in inventories as an 'Assumption of the Virgin' this seems unlikely given that the figure in the sky goes unnoticed by all but the young girl.  It seems instead to show the kneeling girl experiencing some kind of vision.  The figure in the sky may be the Virgin, but it is more likely that she is a local saint."

Raphael and Giulio Romano
Holy Family (La Perla)
1519-20
oil on panel
(purchased by Charles I from the Gonzaga collection in Mantua -
sold after the King's execution to agents for Philip IV of Spain)
Museo del Prado, Madrid

Raphael
The Miraculous Draught of Fishes
ca. 1515-16
bodycolor on paper mounted on canvas
(purchased by Charles I when Prince of Wales in 1623)
Royal Collection, on display at the Victoria & Albert Museum

"Full-scale cartoon for one of a series of tapestries commissioned by Pope Leo X for the Sistine Chapel.  Two boats are shown on the water.  On the left Christ is seated, with the Apostles Peter and Andrew in astonishment before him.  Their boat is full of fish.  The second boat shows two fishermen hauling in their nets full of fish while another steers the boat." 

Jan Gossaert
Adam and Eve
ca. 1520
oil on panel
(presented to Charles I by the Dutch States-General in 1636)
Royal Collection, on display at the National Gallery, London

"Jan Gossaert (ca. 1478-1532) created numerous versions of Adam and Eve, of which this is the largest, with the figures almost life-size.  In 1668 John Evelyn in his English translation of Fréart's Idea of the Perfection of Painting criticized Gossaert's lack of fidelity to the Bible, particularly in his inclusion of an 'artificial stone fountain carved with imagerys' and 'navels on the bellys of our first parents.'  Adam and Eve are shown at the moment after they have eaten the forbidden fruit (the apple in Eve's left hand has a bite-mark)."

Palma il Giovane
Expulsion of the Vices of the Church
ca. 1580-84
oil on canvas
(acquired in Venice through Nathaniel Garrett by Charles I -
sold in England after the King's execution, but recovered at the Restoration)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

"This painting was originally arched and was acquired without a frame, suggesting that it was originally set in the wall of a Venetian scuola or similar building.  It has been dated to early in Palma's career, when he had completed major commissions for the Doge's Palace and was gaining favour with ecclesiastical patrons because of his ability to represent Counter Reformation doctrine in a direct and understandable form."

Cristofano Allori
Judith with the Head of Holofernes
1613
oil on canvas
(purchased by Charles I from the Gonzaga collection in Mantua -
sold in England after the King's execution, but recovered at the Restoration)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

"According to his biographer Baldinucci, Allori painted this work in part as an autobiographical account of his love affair with Maria de Giovanni Mazzafirri, which ended badly.  The figure of Judith, Baldinucci claimed, resembles 'La Mazzafirra,'  the servant in the background her mother, and the severed head of Holofernes is a portrait of the artist himself.  When the poet Giovanni Battista Marino saw a version of this painting in Paris, he specifically read the work as autobiographical, commenting that Holofernes is killed twice, first by the darts of Cupid and second by the sword of Judith.  Allori was by no means unique amongst his artistic contemporaries in his desire to make the story relevant to his own experience, and the picture belongs to a tradition in which artists included portraits within apocryphal narratives."

Caravaggio
Calling of Saints Peter and Andrew
ca. 1602-1604
oil on canvas
(acquired in Italy through William Frizell by Charles I in 1637 -
sold in England after the King's execution, but recovered at the Restoration)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Jan Mertens the Younger
 Calling of Saint Matthew
ca. 1530-40
oil on panel
(presented to Charles I by an unknown donor)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Annibale Carracci
Agony in the Garden
ca. 1596-97
oil on panel
(first recorded in the Royal Collection during the reign of Charles I)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Girolamo Mazzola Bedoli
Christ Child and the infant St John the Baptist embracing
ca. 1533-40
oil on panel
(acquired by Charles I and wrongly attributed to Parmigianino)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Jacopo Tintoretto
Christ washing the feet of the Disciples
1548-49
oil on canvas
(acquired through agents in Venice by Charles I -
sold after the King's execution to agents for Philip IV of Spain)
Museo del Prado, Madrid

Jacopo Tintoretto
Esther before Ahasuerus
ca. 1546-47
oil on canvas
(purchased by Charles I from the Gonzaga collection in Mantua -
sold in England after the King's execution, but recovered at the Restoration)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

"King Ahasuerus's second wife, Esther, learns that the King's chief minister is plotting to have all the Jews in the Persian Empire massacred.  Esther intercedes with the King and eventually he grants her request to spare her people." 

Domenichino
St Agnes
ca. 1620
oil on canvas
(purchased by Charles I from the Gonzaga collection in Mantua -
sold in England after the King's execution, but recovered at the Restoration)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Domenico Fetti
Sacrifice of Elijah before the Priests of Baal
ca. 1621-22
oil on panel
(purchased by Charles I from the Gonzaga collection in Mantua -
sold in England after the King's execution, but recovered at the Restoration)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Domenico Fetti
David with the Head of Goliath
ca. 1620
oil on canvas
(purchased by Charles I from the Gonzaga collection in Mantua -
sold in England after the King's execution, but recovered at the Restoration)
Royal Collection, Great Britain