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Description: | A three-quarter-length portrait standing to left facing forwards. His left hand is on his hip, his head turned towards the viewer wearing a long dark brown wig. He wears a white lace-edged collar and the robes of a Knight of the Garter (dark blue lined with white) with the chain and George round his shoulders. His sword is visible hanging from his left side. A fluted column is behind.
A son of Elizabeth, the 'Winter' Queen of Bohemia, and a nephew of King Charles I, he fought on land for his uncle throughout the Civil War (1642-49) principally as a cavalry commander, and became commander-in-chief of the Royalist land forces in 1644. At the end of the war he took command of the loyalist remnants of the fleet and despite defeat by Blake in 1650, carried on the conflict for several years. Under Charles II, he held commands in the regular navy, fighting in the Second and Third Dutch Wars and becoming Lord High Admiral on the Duke of York's enforced retirement in 1673. He was a man of some artistic talent and intellectual curiosity, and (like his cousin Charles II) a patron of science, often conducting experiments himself.
Lely, a Dutchman who arrived in England in 1641 after the death of Van Dyck, soon became his successor as leading portraitist of the day. He worked for Charles I, continued to flourish under the Commonwealth and Protectorate, and after the Restoration of 1660 was appointed Principal Painter to Charles II. The portrait, inscribed 'Prince Rupert', was the one he gave to his secretary at the end of his life, Thomas Bennett.
caption: Prince Rupert, 1619-82, First Duke of Cumberland and Count Palatine of the Rhine | Publisher: | "http://collections.rmg.co.uk/" | Rights holder: | "Royal Museums Greenwich" | Subjects: | Rupert Lely Admiral General Anthony Bennet family Peter Rumbold The National Maritime Museum - The Collections paintings | Source: | Royal Museums Greenwich | Identifier: | http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections... | Go to resource |
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