Joseph Singleton (1751–1815), Portrait of Prince Charles Edward Stuart (1720–1788)

Joseph Singleton (1751–1815) after Ozias Humphry
Portrait of Prince Charles Edward Stuart (1720–1788)
Watercolour on ivory
c.1775
6.5 x 5.1 cm
Signed and inscribed verso: ‘His R.H. Prince Charles Stuart the Pretender copyed by J. Singleton from an original Picture painted by O. Humphry Esq. RA. at Florence 1776’

Provenance

Possibly Commander Sotheby, his sale, Ecton Hall, sold Sotheby’s, 11 October 1953;
Sworders, Stansted Mountfitchet, United Kingdom, 20.9.2011;
The collection of David Fuller (Consultant for Old Master Paintings at Sotheby’s and Christie’s), until 2024,
His wife, Sandy Fuller, Chelsea, London, 2025;
From whom acquired, Whiteman’s Fine Art, 2025.

Literature

Suffolk Artists, ‘Singleton, Joseph,’ online catalogue https://suffolkartists.co.uk/index.cgi?choice=painter&pid=575 (accessed 8.6.2025)
Possibly Robin Nicholson, Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Making of a Myth: A Study in Portraiture, 1720-1892 (Bucknell University Press, 2002), 147.

Engraved

Probably ‘Charles Edward Stuart (the Pretender 1745),’ R. Cooper, London, published by T. Cadell & W. Davies.
Probably ‘Charles Edward Stuart (the Pretender 1745),’ W. Read, London, published by Richard Bentley, 1836.
Probably, ‘Prince Charles Edward Stuart (The Young Pretender),’ Cook, published by Richard Bentley, 1857.

Note

Prince Charles Edward Stuart was fifty-five years of age when this likeness was taken in 1776, by this time thirty years had passed since he led the Jacobite uprising of 1745 and won fame across Europe. Then living as an exile in Florence, the effects of a life of frustrated ambition to reclaim his ancestral thrones had scarred Charles both physically and psychologically. In this accomplished and emotively penetrating portrait of the prince, we are readily led to read fate into it, however Charles – then hailed by Jacobites as King Charles III since the death of his father, James III, in 1766 – directly and resolutely confronts the viewer with a steely gaze, displaying the stoic dignity of an exiled monarch. Although portrayed without the accoutrements of state (such as the crown and sceptre in the portrait by Laurent Pécheux five years earlier), Charles wears the star and blue sash of the Order of the Garter, the continued bestowal of which by the House of Stuart declared their legitimacy as Britain’s rightful monarchs. The miniaturist and later pastelist Ozias Humphrey (1742-1810), who captured Charles’s likeness in Florence, was at this time travelling Italy with his friend and fellow artist, George Romney. It has been circumstantially argued that the commission was ordered by Charles’s wife, Louisa, Princess of Stolberg who, being beautiful, intelligent and decades his junior, developed an exciting circle of artists and poets which the travellers fell into when visiting Florence [1]. However, what seems more likely when accounting for the present portrait by Joseph Singleton, is that the initial drawing was intended to be translated for wider dissemination in Britain.

Joseph Singleton was a miniaturist who exhibited at the Royal Academy as well as a prominent stipple engraver. Hannah Singleton, Joseph’s wife, was related to the artist Henry Singleton (1766-1839), tutor to Ozias Humphry [2]. Indeed, Joseph Singleton collaborated with Humphrey upon numerous occasions, publishing the latter’s works for a wider audience by translating them into engravings [3]. As argued by Dr. Robin Nicholson, ‘Humphrey was well aware of the necessity for the successful portraitist having a catalogue of “celebrity” subjects and this, as well as a natural curiosity, may have prompted him to search for Charles as a suitable subject.’[4] Given his relationship with Singleton, it is therefore possible that such a potentially commercially lucrative project was envisioned from the beginning. Singleton having painted this portrait evidently received the commission, however the 1815 engraving was made by Richard Cooper, probably using Singelton’s miniature, the latter now nearing the end of his life. Indeed, the engraving and those which later followed it in 1836 and 1857 more closely relate to Singleton’s portrait in which Charles wears a frock coat, waistcoat and cravat rather than the breastplate in that given to Humphrey at Burleigh (see ‘Engraved’ above)[5].

This finely executed portrait remains the only painted testament to Singleton’s artistic collaboration with Humphrey. It is also an extraordinarily rare painted record of this type of Charles Edward Stuart in Florence, the prince being painted only once again before his death by Hugh Douglas Hamilton in 1785.

Footnotes

[1] The original drawing, until recently in the collection of the dukes of Atholl, is now in the SNPG: https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/41421/prince-charles-edward-stuart-1720-1788-eldest-son-prince-james-francis-edward-stuar (accessed 8.6.2025). The resultant painting attributed to Humprey is in the collection of the dukes of Exeter at Burleigh House. There is only one further portrait of this type recorded, though by a lesser hand, its being in the collection of the marquesses of Breadalbane.

[2] Suffolk Artists, ‘Singleton, Joseph,’ online catalogue https://suffolkartists.co.uk/index.cgi?choice=painter&pid=575 (accessed 8.6.2025)

[3] Neil Jeffares cites portraits of Mrs Sheridan, Prince Willem v van Orange-Nassau, amongst others: see his Dictionary of Pastelists, online version: http://www.pastellists.com/Articles/Humphry.pdf#search=%22joseph%20Singleton%22) (accessed 8.6.2025)

[4] Robin Nicholson, Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Making of a Myth: A Study in Portraiture, 1720-1892 (Bucknell University Press, 2002), 90.

[5] Should an engraving have been produced by Singleton from this painting, it would likely have been of a fine quality like examples in the Royal Academy and the Scottish National Portrait Gallery:

https://www.nationalgalleries.org/search?artists%5B30145%5D=30145 (accessed 8.6.2025)

https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/work-of-art/portrait-of-james-wyatt-ra) (accessed 8.6.2025)