Charles I At The Hunt

''Charles I at the Hunt'' – also known under its French title, ''Le Roi à la chasse'' – is an oil-on-canvas portrait of

Charles I of England Charles I (19 November 1600 – 30 January 1649) was King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 27 March 1625 until Execution of Charles I, his execution in 1649. He was born into the House of Stuart as the second son of King James VI of ...

Anthony van Dyck Sir Anthony van Dyck (, many variant spellings; 22 March 1599 – 9 December 1641) was a Brabantian Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England after success in the Southern Netherlands and Italy. The seventh c ...

c. 1635, now in the

Louvre Museum The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...

, Paris. It depicts Charles in civilian clothing and standing next to a horse as if resting on a hunt, in a manner described by the Louvre as a "subtle compromise between gentlemanly nonchalance and regal assurance". Van Dyck gives his naturalistic style full expression: "Charles is given a totally natural look of instinctive sovereignty, in a deliberately informal setting where he strolls so negligently that that he seems at first glance nature's gentleman rather than England's King".''Painting at Court'',

Michael Levey Sir Michael Vincent Levey, LVO, FBA, FRSL (8 June 1927 – 28 December 2008) was a British art historian and was the director of the National Gallery from 1973 to 1986. Biography Levey was born in Wimbledon, London, and grew up in Leigh-on-Sea ...

, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1971, p. 128 The by painting depicts Charles in lighter colours to the left of the painting, standing against the darker ground and the shadowed servants and horse under a tree to the right; his dark hat prevents his face from appearing washed out by the sky. Charles is dismounted, and stands as if surveying his domain and the sea beyond (perhaps the

Solent The Solent ( ) is a strait between the Isle of Wight and Great Britain. It is about long and varies in width between , although the Hurst Spit which projects into the Solent narrows the sea crossing between Hurst Castle and Colwell Bay to ...

with the

Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight ( ) is a county in the English Channel, off the coast of Hampshire, from which it is separated by the Solent. It is the largest and second-most populous island of England. Referred to as 'The Island' by residents, the Isle of ...

visible in the distance). His head is turned and his face pinched in a disdainful and somewhat bitter smile. The king was famously sensitive about his height, and the painting compensates by placing the viewer at a low angle point of view, looking up at the king. Latin inscription on a rock in the lower right corner establishes his rights as a king; "Carolus.I.REX Magnae Britanniae" (Charles I, King of Great Britain – a political statement at the time, only 32 years after his father

James James is a common English language surname and given name: *James (name), the typically masculine first name James * James (surname), various people with the last name James James or James City may also refer to: People * King James (disambiguat ...

had united the crowns of Scotland and England, and proclaimed himself King of Great Britain, and nearly 70 years before the Acts of Union legally created the Kingdom of Great Britain). Charles is dressed as an aristocratic gentleman in a wide-brimmed

cavalier hat A cavalier hat is a variety of wide-brimmed hat popular in the seventeenth century. These hats were often made from felt, and usually trimmed with an ostrich plume. They were often cocked up or had one side of the brim pinned to the side of the c ...

, teardrop

earring An earring is a piece of jewelry attached to the ear via a piercing in the earlobe or another external part of the ear (except in the case of clip earrings, which clip onto the lobe). Earrings have been worn by people in different civilizations an ...

, shimmering silver

satin A satin weave is a type of fabric weave that produces a characteristically glossy, smooth or lustrous material, typically with a glossy top surface and a dull back. It is one of three fundamental types of textile weaves alongside plain weave ...

doublet Doublet is a word derived from the Latin ''duplus'', "twofold, twice as much",