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Five Children of King Charles I

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- subject matching 'Royal babies'

Five Children of King Charles I, by Sir Anthony van Dyck, 17th century, based on a work of 1637 -NPG 267 - © National Portrait Gallery, London

© National Portrait Gallery, London

Early Stuart Portraits Catalogue

Five Children of King Charles I

after Sir Anthony van Dyck
17th century, based on a work of 1637
35 1/4 in. x 69 3/8 in. (895 mm x 1762 mm)
NPG 267

This portraitback to top

Within the additional strip across the top edge the original painting is not closely copied: the brass jug has no handle, the curtain extends more to the left and the fringe alone too far to the right; similarly within the lower extension the lace edge of Mary’s apron does not agree with the original.
The original (163.2 x 198.8), signed and dated 1637, showing the children whole length, is in the Royal Collection [1] and Van Dyck’s drawing for the infant James is at Christ Church, Oxford. [2] In 1868 Colnaghi proposed that NPG 267 was by ‘Old Stone’ but it was accessed as ‘After Van Dyck’. Millar 2004 records many other copies, of which those at Goodwood and Hardwick are half length, as NPG 267.

Footnotesback to top

1) O. Millar, The Tudor, Stuart and Early Georgian Pictures in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen, 1963, no.152, pls.74, 76; Millar 2004, p 480, iv.62. First engraving published by A. Browne by 1684 (J. Chaloner Smith, British Mezzotinto Portraits, 1878-82 4; New Hollstein, Van Dyck, V, 2002, no.421; S. Turner, ‘Alexander Browne’, Wal. Soc., LXX, 2008, pp 105-206, B.6).
2) H. Vey, Die Zeichnungen Anton van Dycks, 1962, no.239; illus. O. Millar, The Tudor, Stuart and Early Georgian Pictures in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen, 1963, fig.25, and Van Dyck in England, NPG, 1982, no.75.

Referenceback to top

Ingamells 2009
John Ingamells, National Portrait Gallery: Later Stuart Portraits 1685-1714, National Portrait Gallery, 2009, pp 119-20.

Millar 2004, p 480 (under iv.62).

Piper 1963
D. Piper, Catalogue of the Seventeenth Century Portraits in the National Portrait Gallery 1625-1714, 1963, p 390.

Physical descriptionback to top

From left to right: Mary, Princess of Orange (1631-1660); James II, wearing a bonnet and skirt; Charles II (1630-85); Princess Elizabeth (1635-50), and Princess Anne (1637-40).

Conservationback to top

Lined; most recently conserved 1972 and 1992; James’s face and Charles’s costume quite damaged and Elizabeth’s dress overpainted.

Provenanceback to top

Colnaghi, from whom purchased 1868.

Exhibitionsback to top

Childhood, Camden Arts Centre, 1967, no.18; Heaton Hall Bicentenary, Manchester, 1972; The Stuart Legacy, Alabama, Memphis, 1991-92, no.186 as ‘painted shortly after the original’; Innocence and Experience, South Bank/Hull/Nottingham/Glasgow, 1992-93, no.18 as contemporary copy; Dog Collars, Guernsey, 1993; European Dog Painting, Nagoya/Tokyo/Osaka, 1996, no.1.


This extended catalogue entry is by John Ingamells, one of a limited number of entries drafted in 2010 for the incomplete catalogue, Early Stuart Portraits 1625-1685, and is as written then. For the most up-to-date details on individual Collection works, we recommend reading the information provided in the Search the Collection results on this website in parallel with this text.

View all known portraits for King James II