Diploma Lecture Series 2012
Absolutism to enlightenment: European art and culture 1665-1765
Charles II and the restoration
Lorraine Kypiotis
15 / 16 February 2012
Lecture summary:
The Restoration had an exhilarating bravado characterised by a lavish and flamboyant court. It saw the return of the
theatre, a flourishing of the arts and the founding of the Royal Society in a court that was the glamorous and often
scandalous centre of a London that would rise from the flames like a phoenix.
The return of Charles II to the throne in 1660 marked a moment of political and cultural change almost as dramatic as that
brought about by his father’s execution 11 years earlier. After the repressions of the interregnum and the uncertainties and
poverty of the exiled court, there was an appetite for exuberance, indulgence and transgression – an appetite that the king
came to symbolize.
After the puritanical sobriety of Cromwell’s parliament, England once again flourished in the arts and sciences. Charles,
and his court patronised a number of scientists, architects, poets and dramatists whose influences were felt far beyond the
reign of the “Merry Monarch”.
Most importantly in the field of the fine arts, Charles was responsible for the recovery of many of the great paintings in
the British Royal Collection that had been sold by the Commonwealth after his father’s execution; for the acquisition of a
number of fine works by the great artists of the Baroque; and in his patronage of portraitists such as Sir Peter Lely.
Charles and the artists he patronised were responsible for the enduring images of a monarchy restored. Many of these fine
works continue to speak directly to viewers far removed from the heady world of the Restoration.
Slide list:
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John Michael Wright Charles II in Coronation Robes (1661-62) Royal collection
Peter Lely Charles II (c.1670) National Maritime Museum. Greenwich
William Dobson, Charles, Prince of Wales (1642 ) National Galleries Scotland
Isaac Fuller King Charles II in Boscobel Wood (1660s) National Portrait Gallery
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Isaac Fuller King Charles in the Great Oak (1660s) National Portrait Gallery
John Michael Wright King Charles II (c1660-1665) National Portrait gallery
John Michael Wright John Dryden, Poet Laureate (1668) Private Collection
John Hayls Samuel Pepys (1666) National Portrait Gallery, Lon.
Sir Anthony Van Dyke The Family of Charles I (1632) Royal Collection
Van Dyck The five eldest children of Charles I (1637) Royal Collection
Van Dyck The Three eldest children of King Charles I - Charles II, James and Mary (1635) Royal Collection
Raphael The Holy family “La Perla” (c.1518) Prado, Madrid
Tintoretto Christ Washing the Feet of the Disciples (1548) Prado, Madrid
Titian Pardo Venus: “Jupiter and Antiope” (1540-42) Louvre
Titian Venus with Organist and Cupid (c.1548) Prado
Caravaggio A Boy Peeling Fruit (c.1592-3) Royal Collection
George de La Tour St Jerome (c.1621-4) Royal Collection
Hans Holbein William Warham & Sir Thomas More (1526-7) Royal Collection
Leonardo da Vinci Studies for an equestrian monument (c.1485-90) Royal Collection
Titian and workshop The Virgin and Child in a landscape with Tobias and the Angel (c.1535-40) Royal Coll.
Titian Portrait of Jacopo Sannazaro (c.1514-18)
Lorenzo Lotto Andrea Odoni (1527) Royal collection
Lorenzo Lotto Portrait of a Bearded Man (c.1515-18) Royal Collection
Giulio Romano Portrait of Margherita Palaeologa (c.1531) Royal Collection
Parmigianino Pallas Athena (c.1531-8) Royal Collection
Samuel Cooper 2 Miniatures of Charles II (c.1660-5) National Maritime Museum, Greenwich & Royal Coll
After William Wissing James Scott, Duke of Monmouth and Buccleuch (c.1683) National Portrait Gallery
Samuel Cooper James Scott, Duke of Monmouth and Buccleuch (c.1664-5) Royal Collection
Dirk Stoop Catherine of Braganza (c1660-61) National Portrait Gallery
Peter Lely Catherine of Braganza (1665) Royal Collection
Peter Lely King Charles II (c.1675) Royal Collection
Peter Lely Self-Portrait (c.1660) National Portrait Gallery
Peter Lely The Windsor Beauties: Diana Kirke, later Countess of Oxford (1665-70) Yale Center for British Art,
Paul Mellon Collection; Mary Bagot, Countess of Falmouth & Dorset (1664-65) Royal Collection; Henrietta
Boyle, later Countess of Rochester (c.1665) Royal Collection
Peter Lely Elizabeth Hamilton, Countess of Gramont (c.1663) Royal Collection
Peter Lely James, Duke of York (later King James II) (c.1665-70) National Portrait gallery
Peter Lely Barbara Villiers as Athena (1663-5) Royal Collection
Peter Lely Barbara Villiers as Mary Magdalene (c.1662) Private Collection
Peter Lely Barbara Palmer (née Villiers),Duchess of Cleveland with her son, Charles Fitzroy, as Madonna and
Child (c.1664) National Portrait Gallery
Peter Lely Frances Teresa Stuart, later Duchess of Richmond and Lennox (c.1662) Royal Collection
John Roettier Struck gold medal of Charles II (1667) Maritime Museum, Greenwich
Peter Lely The Duchess of Portsmouth (1671) J Paul Getty Museum
Pierre Mignard Louise de Kéroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth (1682) National Portrait Gallery
Peter Lely Portrait of Nell Gwynne (1680)
Simon Verelst Nell Gwyn (c.1680-85) Private Collection
Peter Lely Portrait of a young woman and child, as Venus and Cupid : Nell Gwyn (1675)
Peter Lely Nell Gwynne(c.1675) National Portrait Gallery, Lon.
Thomas Hawker (attr.) King Charles II (c.1680) National Portrait Gallery
Bibliography:
Brown, Jonathan, Kings and Connoisseurs: Collecting Art in 17th Century Europe (Princeton University Press. 1995)
Mahon, Denis, Notes on the ‘Dutch Gift’ to Charles II, The Burlington Magazine, Vol 91, No 560 (Nov., 1949) pp30305, 349-50; Vol 92,,No 562 (Jan., 1950) pp 12-18
Marciari Alexander, Julia & McLeod (eds), Politics, Transgression and Representation at the Court of Charles II (Yale
University Press 2007)
Uglow, Jenny, A Gambling Man: Charles II’s Restoration Game (Faber.2009)
John Michael Wright Charles II in Coronation Robes (1661-62) Royal collection
Titian and workshop The Virgin and Child in a landscape with Tobias and the Angel (c.1535-40) Royal Coll.
Peter Lely Barbara Villiers as Athena (1663-5) Royal Collection
Peter Lely Frances Teresa Stuart, later Duchess of Richmond and Lennox (c.1662) Royal Collection
Simon Verelst Nell Gwyn (c.1680-85) Private Collection
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