Two rarely-seen royal paintings by Van Dyck from the Prime Minister’s country house Chequers are being displayed alongside the artist’s last self-portrait in a new display of several of the artists works at the National Portrait Gallery in London, it was announced Friday 4 September 2015. The portraits of King Charles I and Henrietta Maria are star loans in Van Dyck: Transforming British Art (4 September 2015 -3 January 2016) which has been curated to mark the temporary return of the artist’s recently acquired self-portrait part-way through its nationwide tour. The two paintings are part of the collection of the Chequers Trust based in Buckinghamshire, 41 miles from the Prime Minister’s official residence No. 10 Downing Street, and not open to the public. The loaned portrait of Charles I (oil on canvas c. 1636), a sensitive head of the king, is thought to have been kept by Van Dyck in his studio as a model for ot

Read More: Royal portraits from Chequers join new display of Anthony Van Dyck’s self-portrait