Oliver Cromwell

This engraving epitomises the upheaval that took place in Britain after King Charles I was executed and England became a commonwealth. The design, by Pierre Lombard, was closely based on a portrait of the King in oil paint by Anthony Van Dyck (1635-6), but with Cromwell’s head substituted. This lends a regal air to the man who had made himself Lord Protector of England a few years earlier.

A slight halo effect around the head in this version, or ‘state’, of the print, also shows evidence of further alternations to the engraved plate as Lombard, and subsequent printmakers, responded to political developments. After Cromwell’s death in 1660, the head of the Lord Protector was burnished out and his portrait was reworked, before being removed completed, replaced with a portrait of Louis XIV, then Cromwell again, then Charles I, and finally Cromwell again.