Portrait of James Stuart (1612–1655), 1st Duke of Richmond and 4th Duke of Lennox

Van Dyck painted this around 1636, near the height of King Charles the First's personal rule, when the king governed England without calling parliament and his court cultivated exactly this kind of unhurried elegance. The sitter is James Stuart, the king's young cousin, shown at ease in shimmering satin with a hunting spear behind him and a dog pressed against his side, its eyes fixed up on his face. That dog is doing real work in the picture. It stands for loyalty, the aristocratic virtue the portrait is quietly selling. Within a few years the calm on this canvas was gone. Civil war broke out, and when the king was condemned, James reportedly offered to die in his place. He outlived that offer, dying in 1655.