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How Charles I lost his head over his lust for the world's greatest art collection
There's another story to be told about the monarch's collection of masterpieces currently on show at the Royal Academy, says BREEZE BARRINGTON
Plunder? Samson Slaying a Philistine by Giambologna c1562, V&A London
[Creative Commons]
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GREAT leaders like to demonstrate their power. These days it tends to be shows of military might and grand parades of state-of-the-art weaponry.
But Renaissance monarchs and nobles amassed huge collections of art, the better to show off their cultural sophistication. Charles I was no exception and the current exhibition at the Royal Academy indicates the extent of his obsession with collecting the finest art and artists, one which was ultimately to cost him his head.
Walk through Charles I: King and Collector, which represents only a small fraction of the Stuart king’s entire collection, and you can see how art functioned as a political display of power and magnificence.
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