Domenico Corvi (1721-1803), Portrait of Prince Henry Benedict Stuart, Cardinal Duke of York

Domenico Corvi (1721-1803)
The Stanford Hall Portrait of Prince Henry Benedict Stuart, Cardinal Duke of York (1725-1807)
1748
Oil on canvas
29 x 24 in.

This important portrait of Prince Henry Benedict Stuart, Cardinal Duke of York is by the acclaimed Italian baroque artist Domenico Corvi, and was painted in 1748. Henry’s first sitting as a Cardinal was to Corvi in 1747, shortly before he sat to another artist Louis Gabriel Blanchet. Portraits from 1747 show him in Cardinal’s robes, but before he had been ordained a priest by Pope Benedict XIV (his godfather) in September 1748. In this portrait Henry is depicted wearing his famed pectoral cross for the first time, thus signifying his elevation to the priesthood and soon thereafter to bishop. The cross is mounted with brilliant diamonds which he inherited from the Polish Crown Jewels vis-à-vis Prince Henry’s maternal grandfather, Prince James Sobieski son of John III Sobieski, King of Poland. His wearing the cross therefore dates the portrait to late 1748. Indeed, that the portrait very visibly celebrates Cardinal York’s episcopal elevation is captured gloriously here by Corvi’s skilful rendering of diamonds glistening in the light over the luxurious folds of Henry’s scarlet silk mantle and intricate lace work.

This portrait was notably purchased from the Malatesta Palace in Rome by Sarah, Baroness Braye in 1842. The Marchese Malatesta had inherited the estate of Angelo Cesarini, who was Prince Henry’s long-time private secretary and later his executor, to whom the late 'de jure' King Henry IX left the bulk of his effects. Many Stuart relics were sold from the Malatesta Palace, including Laurent Pécheux’s portrait of King Charles III painted in 1770, and pendant portraits by Girolamo Pesci of King James III and Maria Clementina Sobieska, which were also brought to Britain by Baroness Braye and still hang in the Braye collection at Stanford Hall, Leicestershire. Baroness Braye also bought numerous Stuart papers, as well as other items and Jacobite relics derivative of the personal collection of King Henry IX (http://www.jacobite.ca/gazetteer/England/Stanford.htm, published 2012-2017). Its acquisition thus represents a unique opportunity to own an exemplary example of Jacobite portraiture with an illustrious provenance chain leading back to the last of the Stuarts, Henry IX himself.

This portrait of Cardinal York has recently benefitted from the analysis of Dr. Edward Corp, the world leading expert on Jacobite portraiture, for the first time. Dr. Corp has both confirmed this portrait as the autograph Domenico Corvi and its having been commissioned by Cardinal York himself, after which the painting subsequently hung in his own collection until his death in 1807. Dr. Corp has written: ‘When Prince Henry was made a cardinal deacon in 1747 he commissioned a portrait from Domenico Corvi showing him seated at a table and holding a quill pen. It is now in the Wadsworth Atheneum. (He also commissioned a full-length one from Louis-Gabriel Blanchet: private collection). Then in 1748, after he had been ordained a cardinal priest, he commissioned Corvi to paint this second portrait showing him with a cross on his chest.’ ‘We do know that the one you have been offered belonged to Cardinal York himself, so we may assume that it is by Corvi and that it should be regarded as the original.’ ‘For over 160 years the portrait was at Stanford Hall.’

Portraits were vitally important to the exiled Stuarts, and acted as a means of keeping the cause alive amongst their Jacobite adherents and supportive governments in Europe. For example, pictures of Prince Henry’s father, King James III, had been particularly important, especially when he was a young man. Although James’s father, the exiled James II, lived until 1701, James III’s central political significance lay in the fact that he was a boy, whereas his Protestant sisters, Mary and Anne, who ruled in his and his father’s place, were conspicuously unable to provide any Stuart heirs themselves. Jacobite portraits thus served as visual reminders of James III’s health, vigour, and ultimate determination to regain the throne. The whole family took their portraits seriously; for example, we have a record that Henry, when he was young, sat for “about 14 Ours” for his. Such was the prominence of Jacobite imagery that Henry’s brother, Prince Charles, was obliged to take extra precautions during the preparations for his 1745 rebellion. When in Paris he wrote to his father: ‘Nobody nose where I am... I am obliged very often not to stur out of my room, for fier of some bodys noing my face.’ For the Stuarts themselves, it was miniature portraits that were particularly useful as family mementoes, as one might expect during their increasingly frenetic and peripatetic lives. When Charles found that he missed his family, he wrote “with a request which is to have your picture, the Queen’s and the Duke’s in miniature so that since I have the misfortune of not seeing you, the pictures will be of some comfort in the meantime, which I hope in God may not be too long.’

Henry’s appointment as Cardinal had a subtle but important effect on Jacobite portraiture. Until then Jacobite portraits had been invariably political or propagandist in nature, often full of crowns and armour, and the sitters pointing wistfully to a ship in the distant sea heading to England. But now Henry’s religious vows and orders precluded the display of such props, including the wearing of the Order of the Garter, which until then had been constantly worn by the exiled Stuarts as an assertion of their legitimacy. Although Henry never renounced his rights to the crown, the changing of his image from before his ordination, as seen in the portraits in which he wears armour, such as the pastel by La Tour in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, to the more pacific and inherently Catholic presentation, may have been seen as a further signal that he believed the Jacobite’s chances of regaining the throne by force were lost. And of course, it demonstrated most emphatically that Henry, the last Stuart male claimant, would produce no heirs.

Despite becoming a Prince of the Church, Henry never renounced his rightful claim to the crown, however. When his elder brother Charles Edward Stuart, then styled King Charles III, died in 1788 Henry assumed the regnal title of King Henry IX, and insisted on his large household addressing him as ‘Your Majesty’, even on occasion touching for the ‘King’s evil’, or scrofula, whereby the sick would be miraculously healed through the power of divine right kingship. He petitioned the Pope to formally recognise him as King, but to no avail. However his adopted motto would spread through Europe on medals proclaiming his right as King of England, Scotland and Ireland, ‘Non desideriis hominum, sed voluntate Dei’ – ‘Not by the choice of man, but by the will of God.’

Provenance:
Prince Henry Benedict Stuart, Cardinal Duke of York, ‘King Henry IX’; His executor, Angelo Cesarini;
Marchese Malatesta, Palazzo Malatesta, Rome;
From where purchased by Sarah Otway-Cave, 3rd Baroness Braye in 1842; Thence by descent at Stanford Hall, Leicestershire;
Historical Portraits Ltd. (later Philip Mould & Co.);
Private Collection, United Kingdom.

Literature:
Arthur Oswald, ‘Stanford Hall, Leicestershire, the Seat of Lord Braye’ in Country Life, December 11. 1958, p1410-1413.