[1][2] The date of the work is not certain – the National Gallery website gives 1631–32, whilst Carrassat gives 1635 – but it was definitely the first portrait the artist produced after his first trip to Italy, in that it adopts the softer and more colourful palette of the Venetian school.

[3] Life size, it is unlike most portraits of Philip IV, in that it does not show him in his usual wholly black costume.

[4] It was almost certainly the painting on display in the library at the Escorial outside Madrid from the mid-17th century until 1809, when it was removed on the orders of Joseph Bonaparte, who had been placed on the throne of Spain by his brother Napoleon.

It was bought by the National Gallery for £6,300 at the 1882 Hamilton Palace Sale, a very high price for a Spanish painting at the time.

[5] Kenneth Clark, the director of The National Gallery at the time, oversaw a cleaning and restoration of the Silver Philip in 1936, which created significant controversy.