Studio of Domenico Corvi, Portrait of Prince Henry Benedict Stuart, Cardinal York

Studio of Domenico Corvi
Portrait of Prince Henry Benedict Stuart, Cardinal York
c.1750
oil-on-canvas
30 x 25 in.

Provenance
With Philip Mould Ltd;
Christie’s, Old Master & British Pictures, 29.10.2008, lot 214;
Private collection, UK;
Until acquired by Whiteman’s Fine Art, 2026.

Catalogue Note
This portrait of Prince Henry Benedict Stuart, Cardinal Duke of York, was painted in the studio of acclaimed Italian baroque artist Domenico Corvi at Rome. Henry’s first sitting as a Cardinal was to Corvi in 1747, shortly before he sat to another artist Louis Gabriel Blanchet. This first portrait type from 1747 shows the Stuart prince for the first time exchanging his armour for cardinals robes and the Order of the Thistle for a gold pectoral cross. Such was the popularity of the composition, in which he holds a letter signed ‘Card Duca’ with his new style as the Cardinal Duke,’ that Henry was painted again by Corvi the following year when he had been ordained a priest by Pope Benedict XIV (his godfather) in September 1748.[1] In this latter portrait Henry is depicted wearing a cross mounted with diamonds 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.[2] Such were the popularity of these images that further versions of both, from full to bust length, were painted in Corvi’s studio in Rome, perhaps most notably being that in the Royal Collection now hanging at Holyrood Palace, Scotland.[3]

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 VII & 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.[4] 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 abounding with the iconography of legitimate kingship. But now Henry’s religious vows and orders precluded such display, 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 Prince Charles Edward Stuart, then styled King Charles III to his Jacobite supporters, died in 1788 Henry assumed the regnal title of King Henry IX, and insisted on his large household addressing him as ‘Your Majesty.’ Henry even on occasion touched 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 throughout the courts of Europe on medals proclaiming his right as King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, the legend reading ‘Non desideriis hominum, sed voluntate Dei’ – ‘Not by the choice of man, but by the will of God.’[5]

[1] See Edward Corp, The Stuarts in Italy, 1719-1766 (Cambridge University Press, 2013), p.297-298.

[2] The prime version of second portrait type was previously handled by Whiteman’s Fine Art, 2024.

[3] See Royal Collection, RCIN 401252.

[4] See Edward Corp, The King Over the Water (Edinburgh: National Galleries of Scotland, 2001), passim.

[5] See British Museum: BM BNK,EngM.186.