An introduction to European armour in the Royal Collection

Power Dressing
As well as a protective covering, armour has throughout history been a powerful emblem of personal identity. With other military attributes like the sword and commander's baton, it offered a symbolic inventory for the performance of social status. Hierarchies, religious allegiance and power might be asserted by armour's expense, its decoration with particular insignia or the martial skill it implied.
For this reason, in the sixteenth century it became increasingly common for artists on the Continent to represent monarchs and military leaders wearing armour – either standing, or mounted on horseback in the tradition of Roman equestrian sculpture. In England, the fashion for monarchs to be painted in armour became widespread in the early seventeenth century, when the Stuart Kings embraced this mode of self-representation.
Leone Leoni (1509-90)
Emperor Charles V (1500-1558)
Italian School, North Italian
Ludovico Gonzaga (1539-1595) with his Servant.
Juan Pantoja de la Cruz (c. 1553-1608)
Philip III, King of Spain (1578-1621)
Paul van Somer (c. 1576-1621)
James VI & I (1566-1625)
Sir Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641)
Charles I (1600-1649) with M. de St Antoine
Grinling Gibbons (1648-1721)
Charles II, 1630-1685
Emil Wolff (1802-79)
Prince Albert
Queen Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom (1819-1901)