Van Dyck, Portrait of Henrietta Maria, Daughter of Henry IV of France and Sister of Louis XIII, with Sir Jeffrey Hudson

The 24-year-old queen is depicted in fashionable European dress, which the court ladies of England had begun to wear after her example. The orange tree in the background alludes to Henrietta Maria's ancestors, the Medici family; the crown with a heraldic lily to her left points to her royal French origin; and the five golden balls beneath the fleur-de-lis are also a Medici emblem, connected with their collection of citrus fruits.

And now take a look at the second hero of the portrait: this is Sir Jeffrey Hudson, who, as it turns out, is 14 years old. The queen's faithful companion and counsellor, who even joined her in her French exile, Sir Jeffrey had proportionate dwarfism, so that his face and figure were almost indistinguishable from those of a child.