Who painted the oil painting "Charles I in Three Positions"?

Sir Anthony van Dyck (Antwerp, Spanish Netherlands, March 22, 1599 – London, England, December 9, 1641) was the most important Flemish painter of the 17th century after Rubens, whose works influenced the young Van Dyck.

He was an extremely successful portraitist and painter of religious and mythological pictures in Antwerp and Italy. His first independent works date from 1615-16, when he would have been about 17. In 1621 he was in the service of James I of England, but left to visit Italy, where he remained until 1627.

After a second period in the Netherlands, greater success awaited Van Dyck when he settled at the English court in 1632. His authoritative and flattering representations of Charles I and his family set a new standard for English portraiture to which members of the court were keen to aspire.

His oil painting "Charles I in three positions" had an unusual function as a kind of design for sculpture. In 1636 Carlos I sent the original of this painting to the sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini in Rome. It was to assist in the making of a marble bust.

The sculpture was intended as a papal gift to Queen Henrietta Maria. Once the bust was finished, the painting remained in Bernini's possession and passed on to his descendants. It was returned to England in 1802 and entered the Royal Collection in 1822. The bust itself was a great success with the King and Queen. It was finally destroyed in a fire at the Palace of Whitehall, London, in 1698.