Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales (1594-1612) eldest son of...
Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales (1594-1612) eldest son of King James VI & I
Oil on panel. Henry, Prince of Wales is depicted in an angled pose and with a distinctive square-shaped lace collar. These features are seen in another portrait of the Prince by Robert Peake, in the collection of the Bodleian Library, Oxford. The earliest known portrait by Peake is also of â€Henry, Prince of Wales’ (1603; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). Peake produced several portraits of the Prince and may have been his official portraitist. The artist was also employed on the decoration of Henry’s warship, â€Prince Royal’, for which he painted â€diverse histories’ within the cabins.
The painting considered Peake’s masterpiece is his immense portrait of â€Henry, Prince of Wales on Horseback’, which shows the Prince accompanied by Time: an elderly, naked, winged figure. In 1612, the year Henry died at the age of just 18, Peake was employed to paint three pictures of Henry’s younger brother, the future King Charles I.
