Portrait of Gaston de France

When Van Dyck painted this, in the early 1630s, its subject was a fugitive. Gaston, duke of Orleans, was the younger brother of King Louis XIII of France and, until the king finally had a son, the heir to the throne, a position Gaston used mostly to plot against his brother and the all-powerful Cardinal Richelieu. One conspiracy too many sent him fleeing across the border into the Spanish Netherlands, where Van Dyck was working. So the painter gives him everything a prince should have: full armour, the broad blue sash of France's highest order of knighthood, a commander's baton in his hand, one elbow resting on a gleaming helmet. It is the image of a man in exile dressed as though he still led armies. He never did take the throne. Louis's own son grew up to become Louis XIV.