Lot 92: DUTCH SCHOOL, CIRCA 1660

King Charles I (1600-1649), in black doublet, lace collar, wearing the Order of the Garter suspended from a blue ribbon about his neck and the breast-star of the Order embroidered on his black cloak draped over his left shoulder, tall black hat; together with a set of ten rectangular mica overlays relating to the life of the King before imprisonment, his execution and martyrdom
oil on panel and oil on mica
oval, 3 5/8 in. (93 mm.) high, rectangular leather folder

The mica overlays depict:
1. Golden Crown
2. Suit of armour with plumed feather
3. His right hand on the head of a young girl, another child beside her.
4. Soldiers standing with bayonets.
5. Figures with black coats and hats, with soldiers behind.
6. Taking off his black coat, blue waistcoat and white shirt, beneath. 7. In black coat, holding a basin to catch his blood.
8. Executioner on right holding half-severed head of Charles I in right hand.
9. The corpse is laid out in clean white shirt.
10. Wearing laurel crown.

Graham Reynolds discusses the origins of mica sets in The Sixteenth and Seventeenth-Century Miniatures in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen, London, 1999, pp. 294-299. Tradition states that Charles II gave away four mica sets of Charles I and that the exiled Stuarts used them as momentos but there is no evidence of this. Focusing on the life of the King, his imprisonment, execution and martyrdom, there may have been as many 24 micas in a set. Due to the extremely fragile nature of mica that comes from a naturally occuring mineral that can be cleft in thin, transparent sheets or laminae, no complete sets of micas seem to have survived.

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