English School, 17th Century


Eikon Basilike: Portrait of King Charles I, full-length, wearing robes of State and an ermine-lined cloak, kneeling inscribed 'SPLENDIDAM AT GRAVEM / VANITAS/ MVNDI CALCO' (lower right); inscribed 'ASPERAM AT LEVEM/ GRATIA/ CHRISTI TRACTO/ IN VERBO TVOSPES MEA' (centre right); inscribed 'COELI SPECTO/ BEATAM ET AETERNAM' (upper right); inscribed 'CLAR MENS MENTIS/ IMMOTA TRIVMPHANS/ CRESIT SUE PONDERE VIRUS' (upper left); and inscribed with text from from the Eikon 'Though clogged with weights of miserys / As palme deprest I higher rise / And as the unmoored rock outbraves / The boisterous winds & raging waves / Soe Triumph I & in dark night / Of sad afflictions shine more bright / That splendid, but yett toilesome crowne / Regardlesly I trample downe / With joy I take this crown of thorne / Though sharpe yett easie to be borne / That glorious happie crowne I see / Deprived where of I cannot be / Grace/ I slight varie thinges I take what / Doth freely give in glorie place' (on pillar, centre left)oil on canvas86.5 x 65cm (34 1/16 x 25 9/16in).
|ProvenancePossibly commissioned by James Dalyrmple, 1st Viscount Stair (1619-1695)Probably by descent to Sir John Dalrymple, 5th Baronet and 8th Earl of Stair (1771-1853)Thence certainly by descent at Oxenfoord Castle to John Dalrymple, 13th Earl of Stair (1906-1996), by whom offeredSale, Christie's, London, 12 May 1978, lot 78Later acquired by Ronald and Dani Riches, Monmouth Plantation, Mississippi, USAThis rare English icon is a unique posthumous image of the beheaded monarch. On the 9 February 1649, only ten days after King Charles was executed at Whitehall, the Eikon Basilike was published. It was a masterstroke of Royalist propaganda and immediately re-inforced the image of Charles as a martyr. At the Restoration, a commemoration of the king on 30 January was added to the Book of Common Prayer. The frontispiece of the original Eikon Basilike was illustrated with an engraving by William Marshall (fig.1) and, in a subsequent edition, by Wenceslaus Hollar (fig.2). The present painting clearly relates to these printed images. However, there are multiple compositional as well as textual differences and this is the only image of the Eikon Basilike currently recorded in oil. Although it must remain hypothesis, it is possible that the oil painting was commissioned by James Dalrymple, 1st Viscount Stair, who served as Secretary to the commission which was sent to The Hague by the Scottish Parliament in order to negotiate with the future Charles II. Immediately after the Restoration in 1660, James Dalrymple was appointed as a judge in the Court of Session indicating a reward for his strong royalist loyalty. If this hypothesis is correct, the work is likely to have been commissioned in the 1660s.