This was the first work painted for Charles II by the Italian artist Antonio Verrio, who was soon commissioned to decorate the new State Apartments at Windsor Castle. The king is portrayed riding a shell-backed chariot led by Neptune. The British fleet can be seen in the distance. The subject of the painting was probably inspired by the end of the two-year-long Third Anglo-Dutch War, when the Dutch conceded supremacy of the seas to Britain.

Cat. 50