The Sobieskis and Stuarts. Portrait of Prince Charles Edward Stuart, Hugh Douglas Hamilton, 1786

oil on paper mounted on a wooden panel, 1786
private collection

This is the best of the very few portraits of Charles Edward, the first-born son of James III/VIII and Clementina, painted in the final stage of his life, two years before his death. It was painted by Hugh Douglas Hamilton (1740–1808), along with two other portraits depicting Charles’ closest relatives, his brother, Cardinal Henry Benedict, and his illegitimate daughter, Charlotte, legitimised by her father and created Duchess of Albany in 1783.

It was Charlotte who commissioned the portraits. From the original oil on paper presented here, painted from life, Hamilton copied the pastels commissioned by the prince’s daughter. In the 1790s, after the artist’s return to London and subsequently to his native Dublin, other copies were made for Jacobite sympathisers.

In 1745, Charles launched a Rising in Scotland aimed at regaining the thrones of England, Scotland, and Ireland for the Stuarts. Despite initial success and two battles won, his defeat at Culloden in 1746 forced him to flee to the continent. For years, Charles tried to build an alliance favourable for the Stuarts in Europe. However, the opportunity to regain the throne never arose. In December 1785, resigned and in ill health, Charles returned from Florence to Rome with his daughter Charlotte. Just over two years later, he died at the Palazzo del Re in the Piazza dei Santi Apostoli, where the Stuarts had lived since 1719. The palace had been rented for them by the Pope from the Muti family and, after 1730, from the Sacchetti family.