Skip to main content

Visiting this weekend? The Textile Fair is taking place from 6 – 8 November

All visitors, including members, must pre-book their tickets.

If you’d like to visit the fair, book your tickets here, there’s an option to purchase for just the Fair, or a Fairs and Gallery ticket to get access to all Compton Verney has to offer.

If you don’t wish to visit the fair, you can purchase a general admission ticket (reduced to £0 for members when you log in), but please note the ground floor galleries are accessible to Fair ticket holders only.

 

 

The Image of a King

31 March 2012 – 16 September 2012

About the
exhibition

Antwerp-born Anthony Van Dyck (1599-1641) is one of Britain’s best-loved artists – a virtuoso portraitist who excelled in creating imposing images of King Charles I and his family during the 1630s. Possibly Van Dyck’s most impressive and original court portrait was the superb Charles I in Three Positions of 1635, a work which not only captures the certainty of the monarch’s beliefs but also conveys his wistful, reserved and doomed air.

It was painted for the great sculptor Gianlorenzo Bernini as a guide to the King’s features for a marble portrait bust (now lost). This fabulous picture,  on loan from the Royal Collection, was shown in British Portraits alongside Compton Verney’s portrait bust of Charles I, itself a copy of the original by Bernini.

Image of a King, Installation View © Compton Verney, photo by Jamie Woodley