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Description: | A half-length portrait of an unknown Royalist naval commander. He wears a salmon-pink doublet, with braid on his collar and sleeves. Over his left arm, a drape of blue material may also symbolize the sea. He holds the hilt of his sword in his right hand. In his left hand he holds a paper, thought to be either a chart, or his naval commission. Behind the sitter, to the left, a contrived sculptural relief of an allegorical female figure holds a globe and dividers.
Globes symbolised learning and scholarship, and with compasses or dividers, and other instruments formed the attributes of geometry, one of the Seven Liberal Arts. In this sense it meant measurement of the earth, and since navigation is based on geometry, and its derivative trigonometry, the iconography of the portrait's background suggests geography and also navigation, appropriate for a naval officer. To the right of the sitter, a ship is faintly painted to denote his identity as a naval commander.
Although a number of names have been suggested, the identity of the sitter remains unknown. This small portrait may have been intended not only as a likeness, but also as a demonstration of the sitter's loyalty to the King. It was probably painted when Charles I was at Oxford.
Although the artist's career was short, he was a portrait painter who succeeded van Dyck as court painter. He was with Charles I in Oxford in 1642 during the Civil War and betweeen then and his early death he painted many of the Royalists. Although he also painted the royal children he does not appear to have painted the King.
It will need to be checked for object numbers and its condition activity updated; This object was sighted as being on display during the Collections Inventory Project (2001-2005).
caption: Portrait of a Royalist, circa 1643 | Publisher: | "http://collections.rmg.co.uk/" | Rights holder: | "Royal Museums Greenwich" | Subjects: | Treasures of the National Maritime Museum paintings | Source: | Royal Museums Greenwich | Identifier: | http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections... | Go to resource |
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