This life-sized bust of Charles I is located in the British Museum which does not charge an admission fee. The Museum does, however, permit non-flash photography.
This Museum's website (
visit link) discusses the bust in the context of an engraving of the bust:
"Robert van Voerst, Portrait bust of Charles I, an engraving
England, around AD 1636
After a sculpted bust by François Dieussart
This large engraving, which reproduces a sculpted bust of Charles I (reigned 1625-49), is an unfinished proof print of work in progress. The plate is unworked on the king's right shoulder, on a ribbon round his neck and on the medallion that should hang from it. At the bottom of the plate, the panel lacks its inscription. However the engraving captures the spirit of the bust, casting a shadow in its narrow niche.
The plate is attributed to van Voerst (1597-1636), who arrived in London in 1627 after training as an engraver in Utrecht. His early success in engraving painted portraits reached a peak in 1634, when he engraved van Dyck's magnificent double portrait of Charles I and Henrietta Maria (now in the Czech Republic). Van Dyck indicated his admiration of the engraving by including a portrait of van Voerst among those in his series of portraits, the Iconography, as well as by commissioning him to engrave a number of its plates.
The sculptor Dieussart arrived in London in 1636. An early copy of the bust reproduced here survives in Windsor Castle. All we know about the print comes from this unsigned and undated impression. Van Voerst was the only printmaker then working in England, who engraved plates of this quality. An earlier portrait engraving of Shakespeare serves as a comparison for the style (see link).
Van Voerst died of the plague shortly before October 1636, which presumably explains the print's unfinished state."
The placard accompanying the sculpture reads:
"King Charles I (1600-1649)
Terracotta
English, Louis Francois Roubiliac
about 1759
This is a model for a marble in the
Wallace Collection. London,
executed in 1759 for George Selwyn."
Notice that the two sources list different sculptors!
Wikipedia (
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"Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles believed was divinely ordained. Many of his English subjects opposed his actions, in particular his interference in the English and Scottish Churches and the levying of taxes without parliamentary consent which grew to be seen as those of a tyrannical absolute monarch.
Religious conflicts permeated Charles's reign. His failure to successfully aid Protestant forces during the Thirty Years' War, coupled with such actions as marrying a Catholic princess, generated deep mistrust concerning the king's dogma. Charles further allied himself with controversial religious figures, such as the ecclesiastic Richard Montagu, and William Laud, whom Charles appointed Archbishop of Canterbury. Many of Charles' subjects felt this brought the Church of England too close to the Catholic Church. Charles' later attempts to force religious reforms upon Scotland led to the Bishops' Wars, strengthened the position of the English and Scottish Parliaments and helped precipitate the king's downfall.
Charles' last years were marked by the English Civil War, in which he fought the forces of the English and Scottish Parliaments, which challenged the king's attempts to overrule and negate Parliamentary authority, whilst simultaneously using his position as head of the English Church to pursue religious policies which generated the antipathy of reformed groups such as the Puritans. Charles was defeated in the First Civil War (1642–45), after which Parliament expected him to accept its demands for a constitutional monarchy. He instead remained defiant by attempting to forge an alliance with Scotland and escaping to the Isle of Wight. This provoked the Second Civil War (1648–49) and a second defeat for Charles, who was subsequently captured, tried, convicted, and executed for high treason. The monarchy was then abolished and a republic called the Commonwealth of England, also referred to as the Cromwellian Interregnum, was declared. Charles' son, Charles II, who dated his accession from the death of his father, did not take up the reins of government until the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. In that same year, Charles I was canonised as Saint Charles Stuart and King Charles the Martyr by the Church of England and is venerated throughout the Anglican Communion."