This is a portrait of Charles II who was King when the Great Fire of 1666 occurred. This incident which destroyed a good amount of early modern London and took close to a half a century to rebuild was part of large exhibition at the museum of london not too long ago. Most of that exhibit has been torn down but some of it remains as part of the main exhibition area. The museum of london is a good place to get the general feel for the layout and historical geography of london (or so my lonely planet guide book tells me).
You can start out with the exhibit on prehistoric London with stone age and iron age tools. Then you can move on to the Roman era looking at some of the mosaics...and of course the Great Fire of 1666. I don't know if the building/rebuilding aspect of london's history was one of the intentional central themes of the museum of london, but appears to be so.
On a side note I went to Hyde Park today ( it was Regent's Park I went to the other day) saw more brits playing softball, a burgeoning trend?? walked and watched a free concert in the park, saw people in paddle boats. Saw princess Diana's memorial which is large circle shaped spring made from granite that everyone was getting their feet cooled off in. Walked on rotten row, a carriage lane built in 1690 (during the rebuilding it appears). And I saw 'speakers corner' which reminded me of union square in manhattan. I feel like london has the same vibe if you averaged New York City and Boston together and had more of the color red. And a previous roman civilization.
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