King Charles I

Object Type

Portrait busts on this tiny scale are extremely rare. They resemble the small-scale bronze busts of Christ, and occasionally of individuals, produced in 17th-century Italy.

People

The Florence-born sculptor Francesco Fanelli arrived in England from Genoa in the early 1630s. By 1635 he was employed by Charles I and in 1640 he signed himself as Sculptor to the King of Great Britain. However, Fanelli's role as royal sculptor is unclear as no records of large-scale commissions for the King survive. Although Fanelli was said to have 'livd and dyd in England', his exact fate is uncertain.

Subject Depicted

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The fanciful armour of the king is decorated with beautifully modelled but lively reliefs of a unicorn, a lion and two marine deities. These are closely related in style to other reliefs by the artist and may possibly have symbolic meaning, as well as being decorative. The unicorn, for example, was associated with purity and the lion with strength, power and kingship.

Ownership & Use

This intimate object was probably commissioned by the King himself, and may derive from a wax sketch model for a life-sized bust.