普法尔茨选帝侯卡尔·路德维希（1617-1680）与其弟鲁珀特亲王（1619-1682）肖像

These two young men were princes without a country. Their father, Frederick, had briefly been king of Bohemia, the so-called Winter King, mocked for a reign that lasted barely a year before he was driven out and the family lost their German lands in the wars tearing Europe apart. By 1637 the brothers were in London, guests of their uncle King Charles the First, trying to win English backing to get those lands back. Charles commissioned Van Dyck to paint them before they left. The elder, Charles Louis, was the heir; the younger, Rupert, would soon become a famous cavalry commander in the English Civil War. Van Dyck puts them in gleaming armour, and the armour is the point, for they were about to sail for Germany and a war they hoped would restore them. The picture later passed through a Paris banker's collection into the French royal holdings, which is how it reached the Louvre.