Portrait of James Stuart, 4th Duke of Lennox and 1st Duke of Richmond (1612-1655), full-length, wearing the Star and Sash of the Order of the Garter and holding a wand of office

James Stuart inherited the Scottish title of Duke of Lennox from his father in 1624, at the age of twelve, and the ageing King James I, as his nearest male relative, became his guardian. He was made a Gentleman of the Bedchamber in 1625 and was knighted in 1630. King Charles I appointed him a Privy Councillor in 1633 and installed him as a Knight of the Garter, England's highest order of chivalry, in the same year. He was later raised to the English peerage as the 1st Duke of Richmond in 1641. During the Civil War, in which three of his brothers died in the Royalist cause, he proved himself one of King Charles I's most loyal supporters, contributing enormous sums of money, and after the King's capitulation he was one of the five peers who offered themselves to Parliament for 'punishment' instead of the King - to no avail. Van Dyck painted several portraits of him including a celebrated full-length with his greyhound (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) and a half-length portrait also with a greyhound (Iveagh Bequest, Kenwood House, London). This portrait relates to another van Dyck portrait type of which the prime version is in the collection of the Duke of Buccleuch (E. Larsen, The Paintings of Anthony van Dyck, Freren, 1998, II, p. 381, no. 971, I, p. 364, pl. 398).