Karl I. in drei Ansichten

This was never meant to hang on a wall as a picture. Van Dyck painted the King three times over on one canvas, in profile, full face, and three-quarter view, because it was a working tool. It was shipped to Rome so that the sculptor Bernini could carve a marble bust of Charles without the King ever crossing the Alps to sit for him. Behind it sat a piece of quiet Catholic diplomacy. Pope Urban VIII hoped a splendid gift might warm Charles toward Rome, and the finished bust reached the court in 1637, where it was much admired. Then the history turned grim. Charles was executed in 1649, and the marble that this painting helped create was later lost in a fire at Whitehall Palace in 1698. The canvas stayed in Bernini's family home in Rome for about a century and a half before finding its way back to England and into the Royal Collection in 1822.