The principal medallist in the time of Charles I. was Andrew Vanderdort, a Dutchman, also patronized by Prince Henry. Upon the accession of Charles, Vanderdort was made keeper of the King’s cabinet of medals, with a salary of 40_l._ This cabinet or museum was contained in a room in Whitehall, running across from the Thames towards the Banqueting-house, and fronting the gardens westward. By Vanderdort the coins of the realm were designed; and to the commission to perform that work was added an injunction that he should superintend the engravers. To Vanderdort was once confided the preparing of the catalogue of the Royal collection, written in bad English, and preserved in the Ashmolean Museum, at Oxford. It is related of him, that, being entrusted with a miniature by Gibson, the “Parable of the Lost Sheep,” he laid it up so carefully, that, when asked for it by the King, he could not find it, and hung himself from grief.[172] Footnote 172: Walpole. It was owing to the suggestions of Buckingham that the great portrait-painter, Gerard Honthorst, was invited by Charles I. to England. Honthorst of Oxford. was a native of Utrecht, but had completed his education at Rome. He had many pupils in painting of high rank, and amongst them were Elizabeth of Bohemia and her daughters, the Princess Sophia, mother of George I., and the Princess Louisa, afterwards Abbess of Maubissen, being the most apt scholars of that family. It was owing to the early culture of the arts which both the sons of James I. had enjoyed, that it became an easy task for Buckingham to incite Charles to the patronage of great masters in afterlife. Solomon de Caus, a Gascon, was the instructor of Prince Henry, and probably of Charles, who inherited the pictures and statues which his brother had collected. Honthorst probably improved by his lessons the taste that had been already so well cultivated. At Hampton Court, a large picture on the staircase sometimes rivets attention, without conferring pleasure--for the taste for allegorical paintings has long since been extinct. It delineates Charles and his Queen as Apollo and Diana in the clouds; the Duke of Buckingham, as Mercury, is introducing them to the Arts and Sciences, whilst genii are driving away Envy and Malice. This, and other paintings, were completed by Honthorst in six months; the King giving him three thousand florins, a service of silver plate for twelve persons, and a horse. He also painted portraits of the Duke and Duchess of Buckingham, sitting with their two children; and it was likewise the Duke’s fancy to have a large picture by him, representing a tooth-drawer, with many figures introduced around the operation. Horatio Gentileschi, a native of Pisá, was one of those who contributed alike to the collection of Charles and to the glories of York House, which, long before Buckingham’s death, had, we are told, become the admiration of the world.