CHARLES WAUTIER (MONS 1609-1703 BRUSSELS)

Given the evident military iconography included in the present portrait - the cuirass, helmet and commander's baton - it is a very likely that the sitter was serving with the Spanish forces in the Netherlands at the date at which the portrait was executed. In 1656, the second phase of the Franco-Spanish War was still dragging on, though the two antagonists were exhausted, and neither were able to establish dominance. It was in this same year that Wautier painted James, Duke of York, later King James II of England, who spent the period from 1656 to the Restoration in Flanders serving with the Spanish (Royal Collection, London, inv. no. RCIN 402572).