The Restoration of Charles II to the English throne in 1660 ended two decades of Puritan rule and inaugurated a period of cultural renewal in which the arts flourished with a new licence and cosmopolitan sophistication. Charles II had spent his years of exile at the courts of France and the Spanish Netherlands, and he returned determined to transform London into a city that could rival Paris in grandeur and cultural brilliance. Portrait painting dominated the period, with Sir Peter Lely and later Sir Godfrey Kneller establishing the conventions of the Baroque state portrait in England. The Great Fire of London in 1666 paradoxically created an opportunity for the greatest architectural achievement of the era — Christopher Wren’s rebuilding of the City, culminating in St Paul’s Cathedral. The period also saw the foundation of the Royal Society and a new enthusiasm for scientific observation that would influence artistic perception in the decades to come.
16-01 Restoration England – Introduction 1660-1800
16-02 Restoration England – The Power of Beauty in Restoration England
16-03 Restoration England – The Commonwealth to the Georgian Period
16-04 Restoration England – Charles II: Art and Power
16-05 Restoration England – The Windsor and Hampton Court Beauties
16-06 Restoration England – Wren and the English Baroque
The Return of the King — A Court Hungry for Art: When Charles II sailed back to England in May 1660, he brought with him a sophisticated knowledge of French and Flemish art and a determination to use culture as an instrument of royal prestige. The court immediately became a centre of artistic patronage, importing portraits, tapestries, and decorative arts from Europe. The contrast with the austere iconoclasm of the Interregnum could not have been more dramatic.
Sir Peter Lely and the Baroque Portrait: Sir Peter Lely (1618–1680), a Dutch-born painter who had worked for Charles I, became the dominant portraitist of the Restoration court. His portraits of the aristocracy — languid, sensuous, exquisitely dressed — established the visual language of Restoration England. His series of the “Windsor Beauties”, depicting the most celebrated women of the court, perfectly captured the spirit of an age that had rediscovered the pleasures of elegance and display.
The Great Fire and the Rebuilding of London: The Great Fire of September 1666 destroyed eighty-seven churches and over thirteen thousand houses in the City of London. It was catastrophic — and also a unique opportunity. Christopher Wren was appointed Surveyor-General and over the following decades designed fifty-one new City churches, each a unique experiment in Protestant sacred architecture. His masterpiece, St Paul’s Cathedral, completed in 1711, stands as one of the supreme works of English Baroque.
Christopher Wren and English Baroque Architecture: Wren’s genius lay in his ability to synthesise continental Baroque drama with English practicality and Protestant restraint. He had visited France in 1665 and met the great Baroque sculptor Bernini, whose influence can be detected in the dramatic dome of St Paul’s. Yet Wren’s buildings never achieve the theatrical extravagance of Roman Baroque — they are more rational, more classical, more fundamentally English.
The Decorative Arts and Ham House: The Restoration also saw a revolution in interior decoration, as continental fashions — elaborate plasterwork ceilings, carved wood panelling, chinoiserie — transformed the English country house. Ham House in Surrey, remodelled in the 1670s, survives as the most complete example of a Restoration interior in England, its rooms furnished with a richness that shocked even foreign visitors.
Legacy — A New Visual Culture: The Restoration established the conventions of English portraiture, court culture, and civic architecture that would persist through the eighteenth century. Wren’s churches remain among the most beloved buildings in London. And the cosmopolitan ambition of the period — the sense that England could be a serious player in European cultural life — laid the groundwork for the Georgian flowering that followed.