Portrait of King Charles II of England (1653): Art, History and Details

Portrait of King Charles II of England (1653) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Philippe de Champaigne (French, 1602–1674).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Charles II (1630–1685) fled England in 1651 during the English civil war and commissioned this portrait during his exile in France. Charles II never fought on the battlefield, but he was the last British monarch to wear a full suit of armor, which represented his rank and status. The king gestures to the sea beyond the Dover cliffs, and the waiting fleet reveals his intention to return to England, which he did in 1660.

Object facts

• Title: Portrait of King Charles II of England
• Date: 1653
• Creator attribution: Philippe de Champaigne (French, 1602–1674)
• Culture: France
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Framed: 182 x 141 x 15 cm (71 5/8 x 55 1/2 x 5 7/8 in.); Unframed: 129.5 x 97.2 cm (51 x 38 1/4 in.)
• Collection: P - French 17th Century
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1959.38

A detail from the museum

Charles is wearing a typical French cuirassier's armor. Meant for cavalry, the style indicates it was made around 1630 and was likely a gift as Charles would have been an infant at the time it was created.

Collection credit

The Elisabeth Severance Prentiss Collection

Further reading listed by the museum

• Cleveland Museum of Art, “17th Century French Painting Acquired by the Cleveland Museum of Art,” April 2, 1959, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives.
• Wixom, Nancy. "Charles II, King of England." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 46, no. 7 (September 1959): 163-164.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.