Hugh Douglas Hamilton (1739-1808), Portraits of Princes Charles Edward and Henry Benedict Stuart

Hugh Douglas Hamilton (1739-1808)

Pendant portraits of Prince Charles Edward Stuart when ‘King Charles III’ (1720-1788), and Prince Henry Benedict Stuart, Cardinal Duke of York (1725-1807)

Pastel on paper
Charles Edward, 8 ½ x 8 ins. (visible oval), 13 x 12 ins. (framed);
Henry Benedict, 9 ½ x 7 ½ ins. (visible oval), 13 ½ x 12 ins. (framed)
1785-6

Princes Charles Edward and Henry Benedict Stuart were the children of James Francis Edward Stuart, de jure James III and VIII, King of England, Scotland and Ireland. James was the legitimate hereditary heir of his father, James II and VII, who was exiled from his kingdoms during the Revolution of 1688. King James's loyal supporters at home and on the Continent would become known as the ‘Jacobites,’ literally followers of James, and the Jacobite court first began at the royal Palace of Saint-Germain-en-Laye in France, under the patronage of Louis XIV, and later the papal Palazzo Muti in Rome. The princes were born into the exiled British court and its overarching cause, the restoration of the Stuarts, would define their lives. In their formative years, Princes Charles Edward and Henry Benedict enjoyed an intimate friendship, and when Charles acted as his father’s regent in 1745 to reclaim his ancestral kingdoms, Henry was appointed to lead a 10,000 strong invasion force in his support from Dunkirk. When, however, Charles’s startling successes in Scotland and England, which won him the legend of ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie,’ had reversed and ground to a halt in the tragedy of Culloden, Henry’s potentially victory clenching mission was fated never to cross the Channel. After this calamity, Henry Benedict decided with his father’s blessing to follow the vocation he had desired from a young age. He was elected a cardinal in the Catholic Church in 1747 and soon thereafter consecrated as both a priest and bishop. Given that his grandfather had been principally usurped for his adherence to the Old Faith, Prince Charles saw his brother's elevation as a great betrayal, one which would forever undermine their cause in the eyes of their intolerant subjects. Despite Charles Edward becoming the de jure King Charles III on the death of James III in 1766, it would not be until 1785 when these pendant portraits were executed that the two brothers were finally reconciled by Charles’s natural daughter, Charlotte Stuart, Duchess of Albany, upon whose care he had begun to entirely depend (as he had on Henry’s financial support for some years).

Hugh Douglas Hamilton was an Irish artist and one of the great pastellists of the eighteenth century. Although he occasionally painted in oils, his delicate works in pastel, usually feigned ovals housed in gilded neoclassical frames, were popular in London society in the 1750s and 1760s. Receiving commissions from Hanoverian royalty - including Queen Charlotte (1764) - and leading luminaries of the day, his consummate skill as a pastellist was widely celebrated. Costing around six guineas apiece, these pastels were accessible and exhibit a lively freshness often noted by contemporaries. Indeed, they were the ideal medium to supply demand for versions of portraits depicting Hamilton’s famous sitters. In 1779, the artist moved to Italy where he would spend twelve successful years supplying travelling aristocrats with art at the height of the fashionable Grand Tour. As famous personages, portraits of the exiled royal family were in demand and there is a receipt from Hamilton in the Stuart Papers at Windsor Castle, dated 12 July 1786, for ‘A Portrait of His Royal Highness the Cardinal York, 20 Sequins.’ The mention in the account book makes it clear that this was for a portrait ‘in Pastella.’ Indeed, that two drawings were paid for is evinced by 30 1/2 sequins having been paid for ‘three Pictures of Madam the Duchess of Albany’ on the 13 October 1785. Thus - as was established practice - multiple versions were made by the artist of each member of the exiled house to distribute as they pleased. Indeed, an entry from the diary of the banker (and Jacobite sympathiser) Sir William Forbes dated Rome, 1792, mentions a recent visit to the house of Abbé Waters, major domo to Charlotte, Duchess of Albany, where he observed two portraits of Charles Edward as an old man in a brown coat with Garter ribbon and of Henry Benedict done by ‘Mr Hamilton.’ Other versions by Hugh Douglas Hamilton reside in the National Portrait Galleries of England and Scotland, the Dundee Art Gallery and Townley Hall, Drogheda.

These portraits were done shortly after the final reconciliation of the princes in the final years of Charles Edward’s life. They not only poignantly capture the last generation of the legitimate Stuart line nearly a century after James II’s exile, but also the very human relationship between two brothers. Charles, now an aged gentleman - this would be his last portrait - is depicted simply in a frock coat and cravat. However, he wears the rich blue sash of the Order of the Garter and is rendered in full possession of his regal dignity, despite many years of frustrated ambition. Conversely, Prince Henry is portrayed in the rich regalia of an esteemed member of the Roman Curia. At this time, he was an immensely rich and influential prince of the Church and wears the large pectoral cross hanging on a gold chain for which he was famous. The cross is mounted with brilliant diamonds from the Polish Crown Jewels which he inherited in 1737 from his maternal grandfather, Prince James Sobieski (father of Maria Clementina), son of King John III of Poland. And, whereas Charles Edward assuredly confronts the viewers gaze, Cardinal York stares outside of the picture plane with all the contemplative serenity noted as marking his visage throughout his life. Both of their powdered wigs have been exquisitely rendered with the feathery application of pastel that was a trademark of Hamilton’s.

Prince Henry was profoundly grieved by his elder brother’s death on the 31st of January 1788. Despite years of estrangement, Henry never ceased recalling his brother as the hero of the 45’, for whom he rushed to Dunkirk to muster an army. From that morning however, Prince Henry was to be the last of the Stuarts. Although never formally crowned, he was addressed by loyal Jacobites and his large household as His Majesty, King Henry IX. The last pretender’s motto, which he signed with and had inscribed on commemorative medals, read ‘Non desideriis hominum, sed voluntate Dei’ (‘Not by the choice of man, but by the will of God.’). Henry would end his days in 1807, living in great state and touching for the ‘King’s Evil,’ whereby the sick would be miraculously healed by the divine right of kings.

It is remarkable that these pendant portraits have never been separated. This may be merited to their being preserved in the family collection of the Fraser-Tytlers of Aldourie Castle, Scotland, where they hung until 2015 when the castle was sold upon the death of Lady Ann Erskine (née Fraser-Tytler). The Fraser-Tytlers and their kin had a long history of engagement with Jacobitism, with Patrick Fraser-Tytler having welcomed the Sobieski Stuarts (Edward Meyrick Goulburn, John William Burgon: A Biography with Extracts from His Letters and Early Journals (London, 1892), p. 75), whilst ‘Margaret Fraser-Tytler even wrote a biography of Charles Edward published c.1838’ (Neil Jeffares email exchange).

Whiteman’s Fine Art would like to express its gratitude to Dr. William Erskine for his assistance cataloguing these pendant portraits. We would also like to thank the leading academic authority on Hugh Douglas Hamilton’s oeuvre, Neil Jeffares, for his research and confirming this rediscovery, adding the two portraits to his catalogue raisonné of early modern pastellists.

Provenance:

By descent at Aldourie Castle, Loch Ness, Inverness, to Edward Grant Fraser-Tytler (1856-1918);
Lt-Col Neil Fraser-Tytler (1893-1937) m. Christian Fraser-Tytler CBE (1897-1995, the famous ATS officer);
Lady Ann Erskine, née Fraser-Tytler (1920-2015) m. Sir Thomas David Erskine of Cambo, 5th Baronet (1912-2007);
Dr. William Erskine (b. 1952), Fellow, University of Western Australia
(younger brother of Sir Thomas Peter Neil Erskine, 6th Baronet of Cambo, Cambo House, north-east Fife, Scotland), from whom acquired, 2023.

Literature:

Neil Jeffares, “Hugh Douglas Hamilton”, Dictionary of pastellists before 1800, Online edition: Prince Charles Edward Stuart, J.375.11453; Prince Henry Benedict Stuart, J.375.11453