François de Troy (1645–1730) Portrait of Prince James Francis Edward Stuart, 'James III'

François de Troy (1645–1730)
Portrait of Prince James Francis Edward Stuart, 'James III'
1705
Oil on canvas
36 x 30 ins.

This portrait is one of the earliest depictions of James III as a martial adult. He holds a marshal's baton and is dressed in Greenwich armour, distinctive for its black plate and gold highlights, and is therefore represented as ready to restore the Stuarts by force to his ancestral kingdoms. However, James’s position at this date was somewhat precarious. His father, James VII & II who was exiled in the Glorious Revolution of 1688-9, had died in 1701 when James was barely a teenager, and his usurping half-sister, Queen Anne, was proving to be a popular monarch in England. The Jacobite cause, despite the occasionally taciturn support of Louis XIV of France and the papacy, looked somewhat fragile. However, large martial portraits such as this by François de Troy glorified the exiled monarch, showing the now adult king steeped in royal iconography, such as the Garter sash, which declared his legitimacy.

Portraiture played a vital role in keeping the Jacobite cause alive. The great majority of later portraits of James III were commissioned by supporters keen to display their loyalty, either in England or Europe. Early Jacobite portraits, however, were just as likely to be the result of commissions by the Stuarts themselves, particularly those of James III as he grew up. These often dynamic, technically brilliant, and symbolically rich portraits compared favourably to the comparatively dull depictions of the reigning monarchs in Britain.

François de Troy was a leading court artist at Louis XIV’s Versailles and was the artist of choice at the Stuart court-in-exile at the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Between 1698 and 1711 de Troy produced a series of dynastic portraits, but also painted some of the most notable Jacobite supporters such as Lord Drummond. This autograph portrait was painted by de Troy in 1705 and features the unique Latin inscription in the top right, ‘HIC. VIR. HIC EST. TIBI. QUEM PROMITTI, SLEEPIUS AUDIS.’ This is a famous quote from Book VI of Virgil’s Aeneid, which reads ‘And this in truth is he whom you so often hear promised you.’ This is a small except from the following text, ‘Here is Caesar and all the seed of Iulus destined to pass under heaven’s spacious sphere. And this in truth is he whom you so often hear promised you, Augustus Caesar, son of a god, who will again establish a golden age in Latium amid fields once ruled by Saturn.’ This would have been immediately obvious to many who read the inscription which clearly proclaimed James’s divine right to rule the British Empire, just as the gods had foretold that of Augustus Caesar, Aeneas’s descendent, in Virgil’s epic imperial ode to the Roman Empire as personified in Augustus. The implication is that just as the reign of Augustus – under whom Christ was born, peace restored, and the empire expanded – heralded a new golden age of peace and imperial prosperity, so too would that of James III, the king by divine right.

Probably sent to Scotland at the insistence of Sir David Nairne in 1705 [1], the portrait would later enter the Walpole family. Though of course long established Whigs politically, collecting Stuart portraits was a marked characteristic of the family, and upon the death of Horatio William, 4th Earl of Orford (1813-94), many of these portraits were either sold by the earl's executors, or indeed bequeathed to the nation with a choice selection entering the National Portrait Gallery, London [2].

We would like to express our thanks to Dr. Edward Corp for his assistance.

[1] See Corp, E. 2004. A Court in Exile: The Stuarts in France, 1689-1718. Cambridge University Press, p. 191-192.
[2] https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/explore/by-publication/kerslake/early-georgian-portraits-catalogue-james?_gl=1*1tngcuz*_up*MQ..*_ga*MTc4NzI3OTUwMC4xNzIxNjUzMTU5*_ga_3D53N72CHJ*MTcyMTY1MzE1OS4xLjAuMTcyMTY1MzE1OS4wLjAuMA..#4

Provenance:
Horatio William Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford (1813-1894) (collectors label verso);
Gregory & Co., 212, 214 & 216 Regent Street, c.1894-1899 (gallery label verso).