English or Flemish, late 17th century

head slightly raised to the left, hair falling in voluminous curls onto his left shoulder, wearing a plain collar and classical armour suit with lion mask pauldrons, sash draped over his left shoulder and the Lesser George suspended bottom left from his right shoulder, mounted on later ebonised wood socle

The identity of the sculptor of this beautifully carved posthumous bust of Charles I is not known. A lead version, slightly smaller in scale and less well finished, is in the Victoria & Albert Museum(inv.no.A.213-1946). The small scale of the bust and its sensitively carved surface has in the past raised the possibility of it being a work by the Florentine-born sculptor Francesco Fanelli (1577-after 1658), one of the more talented of the king's sculptors active in London prior to the Civil War. The lead in the V&A is described as in his style and indeed the features of the head are stylistically not dissimilar to Fanelli's work. Nonetheless the few portrait busts by him that survive are all in bronze and do not replicate the distinctive lion mask pauldrons featuring so prominently here.

The present bust instead appears to be a later amalgam of the well-known bust of Charles I by Hubert Le Sueur, which did feature lion pauldrons and decorative scrolling rinceaux, with the more baroque qualities of Fanelli and François Dieussart, sculptor of the marble bust of Charles I at Arundel Castle. The face itself may derive from the lost bust of the king by Bernini and, ultimately, to Van Dyck.

An interesting comparison can be drawn between the present bust and a similarly sized marble portrait of a man in the V&A, formerly identified (from an inscription on the associated base) as William Juxon, Lord Treasurer and Archbishop of Canterbury (inv.no. A.32-1951).  Irrespective of the sitter's identity, the treatment of the scrolling locks of hair and delicate modelling of the surface of the skin, suggest they might be by the same hand. The bust is described as French or Flemish, 1650-1700. Less convincing a comparison but worthy of note are a pair of small marble busts sold in these rooms 15th December 1961, lot 33, portraying a man in armour with lace collar and a woman, possibly in the costume of a masque, and rather optimistically identified as Queen Anne and Prince George of Denmark.

RELATED LITERATURE
Bilbey & Trusted, pp.3-4, nos.2-3