Sweet child of mine
TWO artists, two paintings, the same subject and shared assumptions: in 1608, English miniaturist Nicholas Hilliard accepted a royal commission to paint James I’s second son, Charles; two years later, Hilliard’s best-known pupil, Isaac Oliver, also painted the future Charles I. No more than a passing resemblance links the two images of the sandy-haired prince. At eight and 10 years old, Charles is depicted as a diminutive adult dressed in the costly clothing of his royal rank.
Some three decades earlier, in 1574, Arnold Bronckhorst had executed a similar portrait of Charles’s father: James VI of Scotland dressed for hawking aged eight. A bird of prey rests on his gauntleted hand, on his head is a plumed cap; only a determined expression on the pale, childish face conveys intimations of character. As are Hilliard and Oliver’s miniatures and the gold-leaf-enriched, full-length portrait of
