Portrait of King Charles I with the Scottish Royal Crown C.1633; Studio of Daniel Mytens (C.1590-1647/48), Antique Oil Painting on Canvas

Portrait of King Charles I with the Scottish Royal Crown c.1633

Studio of Daniel Mytens (c.1590-1647/48)

The artist of this portrait was one of the most distinguished Anglo-Dutch court artists of the time and court painter to King Charles I - Daniel Mytens. Even though Mytens’ output of full-length portraits of Charles I and his courtiers was prolific, what is unique to our portrait and is of particular importance, is the presence of what must be a representation of the Scottish royal crown - all other portraits of Charles I that depict him with a crown show him beside the Tudor Crown. Although Charles succeeded his father in 1625, his long-delayed and long-awaited Scottish coronation did not take place until he finally returned to his native Scotland in the early summer of 1633, the first such royal pageant in Edinburgh since 1590. Our portrait is thought to have been commissioned to mark this event, painted between the king's accession to the throne in 1625 and Mytens' departure from England in 1634.

Charles I was the second surviving son of James I. He married Henrietta Maria (1609–1669), sister of the French king Louis XIII, in 1625. His reign was marked by increasing hostility between himself and Parliament. He then ruled for 11 years without a Parliament. It was his relationship with the second of these, the Long Parliament, which led to the English Civil War and to his own eventual capture in 1647. In 1649 he was tried in Westminster Hall, charged with high treason and beheaded on a scaffold erected in Whitehall.

This magnificent portrait depicts Charles wearing a doublet of brownish coloured silk with a sharply pointed V-shaped waistline. Below the waist at the front are six stiffened laps decorated with gold thread. Tightly spaced buttons stretch from neck to waist ensuring the doublet retains its tight fit across the torso. Around the waistline are ribbon bows tipped with metal aglets. By this stage they are probably purely ornamental, a vestigial feature reflecting the earlier fashion for doublet and breeches to be laced together through holes in the waistband. The riband and badge (the Great George) of the Order of the Garter hang down his chest. Although the regalia never lets us forget that we are in the presence of royalty, the costume is that of a fashionable (but not overly so) courtier. Cordovan leather is used for his gloves.

The artist’s Dutch origins are evident in his sensitivity to texture and surface. The overall image is one of luxury and superb rendering of paint, noteworthy in the textiles but also the fine and painstaking depiction of the white lace ruff. Such characteristics are combined with the Elizabethan and Jacobean tradition of formal full-length court portraiture. The present work is clearly consistent in execution with autograph works of the period.

Daniel Mytens (c. 1590-1647/48) was born in Delft into a family of artists. He worked in Delft up to 1602 and then in The Hague between 1602 and 1617 where he was also a member of the guild of Saint Luke's in 1610. He may have been a pupil of either Michiel van Miereveld or Jan Anthonisz van Ravesteyn, or both. By 1618 he was working in London. He painted James I in 1621 and was awarded an annual pension by the King in 1624. Soon after his accession in 1625, Charles I appointed Mytens ‘one of our picture-drawers of our Chamber in ordinairie’ for life. He was so prolific in producing full-length portraits of Charles I and his courtiers, including duplicates of current works and older portraits (of royal sitters, including; James IV of Scotland, his wife Margaret Tudor, and Mary, Queen of Scots) that it is assumed that he had workshop assistance, including from Cornelius Johnson (amongst others) around 1630.

This portrait is an excellent example of royal court portraiture by the leading artist at the time. It is of Scottish interest with the very rare depiction of the Scottish crown.

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