Charles is depicted wearing the same suit of armour, riding a heavily muscled dun horse with a peculiarly small head.

Charles appears as a heroic philosopher king, contemplatively surveying his domain, carrying a baton of command, with a long sword to his side, and wearing the medallion of the Sovereign of the Order of the Garter.

[3] In c.1620, Van Dyck painted a similar portrait of Charles V. The composition may also borrow from Dürer’s 1513 engraving Knight, Death and the Devil.

In addition to the paintings, a near life-size equestrian statue of Charles I by Hubert Le Sueur was erected at Charing Cross in 1633 (although originally commissioned in 1630 for Lord Weston's garden in Roehampton; it now stands to the south of Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square).

[4] Van Dyck used the usual pigments of his time such as smalt, ochres, vermilion, red lake and azurite for the rather subdued tones and subtle colours.

It was acquired by Gisbert van Ceulen, who sold it to Maximilian II Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria and Governor of the Spanish Netherlands, in 1698, but was soon taken from Munich as booty of war by Emperor Joseph I.