Portrait of Mary, Princess Royal, as a girl

Mary was the eldest daughter of Charles I. At the age of nine, in May 1641, the princess married William II of Orange, and the following year, she travelled (with her mother) to the Netherlands. In 1650, eight days after her husband's death from smallpox, Mary gave birth to a son, but a few short months after her brother Charles II had been restored to the throne in 1660 after the English Civil War, Mary died, also of smallpox. Her son William would eventually be crowned King of Great Britiain in 1689.

Van Dyck has captured the young princess in a traditional pose, showing a maturity beyond her years in her formal court finery – a rich, silver-laced gown and pearl headdress, a woman worthy of her marriage to the Prince of Orange. Yet it is van Dyck’s ability to capture at the same time Mary’s bashful uncertainty that helps explain the artist’s celebrated status at the court of Charles I. This is undeniably a brilliant portrait of a young girl carrying the weight of adult expectation on her shoulders.