Circle of Sir Anthony van Dyck, Flemish 1599-1641- Portrait of James Stanley, 7th Earl of Derby, half-length, wearing armour; oil on canvas, 36.1 x 30.4 cm. Provenance: The Property of the Right Hon. the Earl of Derby, MC, removed from Knowsley Hall, Prescot, Lancashire. his sale, Christie's, London, 31 March 1967, lot 80. Private Collection, UK. Note: The present portrait is informed by Van Dyck's c.1636 painting of 'James Stanley, Lord Strange, Later Seventh Earl of Derby, with His Wife, Charlotte, and Their Daughter', now in the Frick Collection in New York [1913.1.40], with this interpretation isolating the figure of Stanley (1607-1651), and depicting him in military costume. The depiction of Stanley in armour emphasises the sitter's role as a prominent supporter of Charles I (1600-1649) and the Royalist cause during the English Civil War (1642-1651), for which he was charged with treason and executed in 1651. Numerous versions of this same composition, contemporaneous with the present work, have been recorded, such as that in the Derby Collection at Knowsley Hall, Merseyside, and another, almost strikingly similar work by a pupil of Van Dyck which sold at Dorotheum, Vienna, on 10 November 2022 (lot 221) for €11,000. Another, larger-scale, depiction of Stanley in armour informed by Van Dyck's original composition is in the collection of the Government of the Isle of Man, where Stanley served as Governor.