Portrait of King Charles II, as a child, full-length, seated on the cushion of the Kings Choir of State between curtains, in a white silk dress and bonnet, a jewelled rattle in his left hand with a lapdog, in an interior with a carpet of oriental design

Charles, Prince of Wales, later King Charles II (1630-1685), was the eldest son of King Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria. In 1645 in the final stages of the Civil War he left England for the Channel Islands and then for France where he remained in exile after Charles I's execution in 1648 until the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. His own reign was beset by the twin issues of religon and the succession. This largely sprang from his childless marriage to Catherine of Braganza and the unpopularity of his Catholic-inclined younger brother, James, Duke of York, who eventually succeeded him as King James II in 1685.
This, the earliest surviving portrait of the Prince of Wales, dates as the inscription implies from mid October 1630. The inscription is in French and the character of the picture itself suggests that this is likely to be by the 'French picture drawer' who is know to have been in the train of Scipion Guilliet, who was sent as ambassador by Queen Henrietta Maria's brother, King Louis XIII of France, and is referred to in the Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, on 20 August 1630 (we are indebted for this reference to Lady Gibson). The picture was presumably sent back to France, which would explain why there appear to be no early English versions of it.
As Lady Gibson points out, the Prince is shown propped up on the cushion which is associated with the King's Choir of State.