Lavish velvets, sumptuous silks, a flourish of ribbons, and oh, what hair! Looking at Simon Verelst’s imposing portrait of Charles II some decade or so after his ascension to the throne during the Restoration of the Monarchy, one could almost imagine his famously decadent father had never been beheaded twenty years previously. But then that, in some ways, was the point – the reassuring point, although it was a fine line. After the 11 year chaos of the Interrugnum under de facto king, Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell, the restoration of order amongst the divided masses had to be seen as “business as usual”. And no one understood that better than the Merry Monarch himself.

Art, as this exhibition, curated by Deborah Clarke, states, was power, both for Charles I and his son who understood that it gave him a means to express his authority as rightful King, whilst also realizing he had to curb the excessive and damaging expenditure of his father, not least because he had very little money.

Charles had been brought up in exile, moving between the courts of Europe, not least that of Louis IV, the Sun King, at Versailles, surrounded by the opulence of court life and the visual imaginings of monarchy and power, of divine right and rule. When Charles II was crowned in England in 1660 after the death of Cromwell – he had already been crowned in Scotland on his father’s death in 1649 before going into exile – one of the first things he did was issue a Proclamation calling for the return of all his father’s outstanding collection of artworks, silver, furniture and goods which had been sold off under Cromwell. The ports blocked, the people warned in no uncertain terms, the fabulous collection of his father slowly began to trickle back – if never in its entirety - to the sprawling Tudor palace of Whitehall.

This exhibition, which is a reduced version of the exhibition which ran in the larger halls of the Queens Gallery in London recently, must necessarily gallop through the contextual before and after, for there is only a third of the wall space of the London gallery and height restrictions that mean that some of the larger portraits, of which there are many lavish examples, cannot be shown here. But there are many treasures, from the arresting black and white mezzotint, a medium then in its infancy, of Charles II, to the somewhat outlandish mythological fantasy, The Sea Triumph of Charles II (c.1674), a reworking of the ending of the Third Anglo-Dutch War in which Charles surmounts a melee of classical symbolism in a billowing cloak, pulled in a shell-chariot by Neptune himself.

This astounding picture was the work of trompe-l’oeil genius Antonio Verrio, who subsequently went on to decorate the new state apartments at Windsor – some of which still exist - in similarly lavish style. If this image, along with the silver tables and mirrors, designed to glimmer in the candlelight, is indicative of Charles II court style, then so, too, are the portraits which surround it, the “Windsor Beauties”, a selection of powerful court women – including a number of the royal mistresses – by the King’s “Limner and Picture Drawer”, Peter Lely, brought to the court by Charles just three weeks after he was crowned. The women, heavy-lidded, painted with what poet Alexander Pope called “The sleepy eye, that spoke the melting soul,” are painted superbly in lavish yet informal clothes – indicating their high status and evoking, as Curator Deborah Clarke points out in the equally lavish catalogue that accompanies the exhibition, “the sensuous and luxuriant atmosphere of the Restoration court”.

If Charles relied on reclamation to furnish his empty palaces, he also relied on goodwill gifts, which included works by Italian masters from Da Vinci to Veronese and Gentileschi. Then too, there was the famous “Dutch Gift” from Holland and West Friesland, and vast libraries of books, lavishly bound where he could afford, to demonstrate both his cultural and scientific interests, many examples of which are shown here.

There is another vein, too, to this exhibition, in the works that immortalize the martyrdom of Charles’ father, sometimes explicitly, sometimes more symbolically. In his bedroom at the old palace at Whitehall, Charles II hung Carlo Dolci’s painting, worked in contemporary 17th century clothes, of Salome with the Head of John the Baptist. It brings a sharper edge to this ostentatious tale with its dark beginnings that is reflected at the end of the exhibition in two small books which belonged to Charles’ brother and ill-starred Catholic successor, James II/VII. In one, like his father before him, he writes down instructions for ruling to his infant son. Instructions, as he probably realized, that would never be put into practice, for in the aftermath of the 17th century, all the art in the world could not put a Catholic on the throne.

Charles II: Art and Power, Queens Gallery, Palace of Holyroodhouse, Canongate, The Royal Mile, Edinburgh, www.rct.uk Until 2 June 2019, Daily, 9.30am – 4.30pm, £7.20/concessions available

Don't Miss

The Annual Open Exhibition at the Pier Arts Centre opens this weekend, showcasing the talent of the diverse range of artists that call Orkney home. There is everything here, from sculpture to video work, pottery to textiles, with works ranging from fine art to craft. Everything is for sale, whether from professional artist or skilled amateur, and the whole exhibition is well worth a browse, given the season which is forthcoming...

Annual Open Exhibition, Pier Arts Centre, 28 Victoria Street, Stromness, Orkney, 01856 850209, www.pierartscentre.com Until 22 Dec, Tues - Sat, 10.30am - 5pm

Critics Choice

Sculptor Tim Pomeroy’s works are instantly recognisable – hefts of monumentality, carved into surfaces of wood, slate, marble and stone. The patterns are unfussy, the shapes organic. This exhibition, filled with 25 new works made specifically for it, is full of Neolithic-inspired works, an embedded part of the landscape which surrounds Pomeroy on his home on Arran.

There is much that is familiar in this new show, the wooden “pod” shapes, aerodynamic, part seed, part aerodynamic – or perhaps aquadynamic – construction. There are the carved stones, a "Chamfered Whorl" made from slate and gold leaf, a "Reliquary" made of Peterhead stone. There is new work here in reed too, criss-crossed into a solid cross form. There is the juxtaposition of brass mounted on paper, then reed and brass, and elsewhere, dark etching. The work has a satisfying relationship to weight, both literal and in the space.

Pomeroy, born in Hamilton in 1957, trained at Grays School of Art, and has long been interested in archaeology, particularly the Neolithic, and the sacred associations of carving in stone. There is the substantial nature of the Neolithic carved ball in some of Pomeroy’s shapes – if on a much larger scale - his interest in the man-made objects of that period clear. But he also works into wood and stone as if chasing his own tree rings, or magnifying the microscopic geometry of nature.

Tim Pomeroy: Marble, Slate, Wood, The Fine Art Society in Edinburgh, 6 Dundas Street, Edinburgh, 0131 557 4050, www.fasinedinburgh.com Until 22 Dec, Mon – Fri, 10am – 6pm, Sat, 11am – 2pm