| Existing comment:
This portrait of Sir William Berkeley (c . 1608-1677) by Sir Peter Lely, 1661-62, was not merely an image of the man himself, but also of the royalist ideas he brought to Virginia. The cavalry charge probably refers to Berkeley's service to Charles I in the English Civil War. The painting reveals another identify with the king. The pose imitates Charles I in a famous portrait by Van Dyck now in the Louvre. |