An engraving of Charles II after a portrait by Abraham van Diepenbeeck (third state): half length, facing half right. He is clad in armour and holds a commander's baton. The crown and sceptre lie on a table behind him. Martial emblems and a cornucopia flank the inscribed cartouche in front of him. In the background, on the left, Jupiter harries a fleeing army. On a promontory on the right, a phoenix rises from flames.

Charles II spent fourteen years in exile. Wenceslaus Hollar was one of the first to depict him as the rightful king when he reissued his etching after Van in 1649. In that print he was represented as an eleven-year-old child. RCIN 805377 depicts the king-in-exile as a warrior. The garter sash and badge of St George, as well as the crown and sceptre, proclaim Charles's legitimacy, and his own personal mythology is also cited in the star and phoenix. At his birth, a bright star supposedly appeared in the sky. The iconography of the phoenix rising from the ashes, reinforced by the inscription on the print, Redivivo Phoenici (Phoenix Reborn), was of obvious relevance to the rebirth of the institution of monarchy.

Text adapted from Charles II: Art & Power, London, 2017.