is uncle Christian visited London in 1616 shortly after commissioning a sculpture designed to symbolize "the apotheosis of Denmark's new role" as master of the Baltic (following the recent defeat of Sweden), and such lessons in "the political use" of art were not lost on Charles (Howarth 75).
In the slightly less practical realm, however, Charles had the example of several prominent connoisseurs and collectors. Sir Dudley Carleton served as ambassador to both Venice and the Low Countries and was commissioned to purchase works of art for collectors. Carleton's taste for Venetian art was a major influence on Charles as well as on George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham and Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel. Villiers was "the chief of James I's beautiful male favorites" (Alsop 460). He had entered Royal service as a page and, by the time of the king's death, "was the most powerful, as well as the richest, duke in the kingdom" (Plumb 99). Buckingham spent lavishly on the arts, buying "quickly and recklessly, though often with striking results"--purchasing
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