Charles II of England

He is about seven here, in a full suit of polished armour, a pistol in one hand and his plumed helmet on the ledge beside him. The year is around 1637. His father, Charles the First, had been governing England for eight years without calling a parliament, and the trouble that grew into civil war was only starting in Scotland, with riots that summer over a new prayer book. The boy would be king in 1660, after his father's execution and years of exile abroad. The canvas has a divided history of its own. Van Dyck's original is at Windsor, several versions of it exist, and in 1666 this one hung in the Alcázar in Madrid as an original. A royal inventory of 1747 still called it an original by Antonio Van Dic and valued it at 5,000 reales. By 1857 the museum's own catalogue had entered it as school of Van Dyck.