(Paris 1674–1734)
Portrait of Prince James Francis Edward Stuart, ‘The Old Pretender’,
oil on canvas, 136.5 x 104 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private Collection, Belgium

Exhibited:
Musée de Dinant, Exposition d’une collection de Tableaux de Maitres Anciens, 1 August – 1 October 1935, as Hyacinthe Rigaud (according to a label on the reverse)

We are grateful to Alastair Laing for suggesting the attribution on the basis of a digital photograph.

The present portrait is of Prince James Francis Edward Stuart eldest son of James II of England and James VII of Scotland and it is linked to a major episode in the history of Britain and Ireland. After the death of King Charles II in 1685, his younger brother James Stuart (1633–1701) succeeded to the throne, ruling as James II of England and James VII of Scotland. A convinced Catholic, he looked favourably towards France and when he unexpectedly produced a male heir, James Francis Edward Stuart (1688–1766), portrayed here, the English aristocracy, horrified by the prospect of ‘papist tyranny’ appealed to William III of Orange, the Stadtholder of the Netherlands, and son-in-law of King James II. William of Orange landed in England at the head of an army in the 1688 and James II was obliged to flee to France. Later Queen Mary of Modena, disguised as a laundress, smuggled the infant heir to the throne James Francis Edward, Prince of Wales, to France. They settled in the Château of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, near Versailles, made available to them by their cousin King Louis XIV.

The exiled Stuart court began to live in the French manner: the English sovereigns were often received at Versailles, Marly and Fontainebleau, hunted with the King of France and his son, the Grand Dauphin, and attended festivities at the French court. A succession of artists arrived at Saint-Germain to paint the portraits of James II, Mary of Modena, the young James Francis Edward Stuart, Prince of Wales and, soon after, the young Princess Louise Mary, born in 1692. These works, widely copied for the families loyal to the cause of the exiled king (the so-called Jacobites), were painted by the best portraitists of the royal court of France: Pierre Mignard (1612–1695) François de Troy (1645–1730), Nicolas de Largillière (1656–1746) and Hyacinthe Rigaud (1659–1743).

A student of François de Troy, Alexis-Simon Belle (1674–1734), became practically the official painter of the Jacobites (see La Cour des Stuarts à Saint-Germain-en-Laye au temps de Louis XIV, exhibition catalogue, Musée des Antiquités nationales de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, 1992).

The Stuart court in exile commissioned a steady flow of portraits and it has been argued that their purpose was essentially political and an important part of a long propaganda campaign, which the deposed royals maintained from 1689 until the late 1740s. Portrait painters had always been employed to project an image and reinforce the recognition of monarchs and their importance for a royal family in exile, anxious not to be forgotten, was even more crucial (see: E. Corp, The King over the Water, Portraits of the Stuarts in Exile after 1689, Scottish National Portrait Gallery, 2001). The Stuart court in exile commissioned paintings and engravings of their portraits to remind, or persuade, people that they were still the legitimate kings of England, Scotland and Ireland. Seventeenth century rulers were well aware that dynastic loyalty required visual stimulation and portraits were used as weapons in this specific war fought on several fronts and the present painting is a fine example. Another version of the present painting is in the Scotland Office, Dover House, Whitehall (136 x 107 cm).

The long series of Jacobite invasions, rebellions and plots were partly made possible because people knew who they were acting for and could visualise the princes they risked their lives for. Fortunately, the Stuarts were able to employ some of the finest portraitists of the age who worked at the court of France and these artists were arguably more talented than those who were based in England at the time.