The Fake Pretender

April 2002

by Sandy Cheyne

I have just finished reading Bonnie Prince Charlie by Fitzroy Maclean – well worth reading, too. The book I have is the Canongate Books paperback edition, and on the front cover is a portrait of Bonnie Prince Charlie by the well-known French artist, Quentin de la Tour, the original of which is in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh.

I have now discovered that Prince Charlie did not sit for this portrait. In fact, no-one did. Nor was it painted from memory. What, then, did happen?

I also possess a booklet about Prince Charlie in the Pitkin Pride of Britain series, which also has a portrait of the prince on the front cover, this one painted by Louis-Gabriel Blanchet. Both are good portraits, painted by artists whose competence is beyond question, but on comparing them, something struck me.

The two portraits are not of the same person.

WHICH BONNIE PRINCE? Artist’s impression of the painting of Prince Charlie – or is it Henry Benedict? The prince certainly did not sit for this portrait by Quentin de la Tour.

UNCERTAIN FUTURE: Artist’s impression of the painting of Prince Charlie by Louis Gabriel Blanchet, which features a prominent forehead, smallish, full-lipped mouth and receding chin.

Now this is curious, because both artists are capable of painting a good likeness of the sitter. Could one of them possibly have painted a poor resemblance?

I looked closely at Blanchet’s portrait – especially the hands. As a portrait painter myself, I find that hands can be even more difficult to paint than faces. Here they were excellent – anyone who can paints hands like that can certainly paint a good likeness.

On the back cover of the Pitkin booklet is another portrait of Prince Charlie, this time as an older man, aged 55, painted by H. D. Hamilton in 1775 – again a very competent painting.

The face we see here is an older version of Blanchet’s portrait. The features sag a bit with age, of course, but the structure is basically the same – a prominent forehead, smallish, full-lipped mouth and receding chin. De la Tour’s portrait, on the other hand, shows a receding forehead, a more thin-lipped mouth, and a chin which, although not prominent, doesn’t recede.

In the eyes and nose the differences are not so marked, but they do exist. The expressions are also markedly different. Blanchet’s portrait has the sort of expression we would expect – a hopeful, slightly apprehensive look, the face of a young man with a lot on his mind; an uncertain future, a kingdom to be fought for and won – or lost. De la Tour’s painting is quite the opposite. Here we see a face looking into a future with confidence and contentment, a man who seems to be quite satisfied with life, an expression of almost smug self-assurance. This face, nevertheless, had a familiar look about it. I had a feeling I’d seen it before somewhere.

Unknown Cardinal: formerly known as Henry Benedict Maria Clement Stuart, Cardinal York. Artist: possibly after Batoni, Pompeo, 1708-1787. Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London

THE OLDER MAN: Artist’s impression of the painting of Prince Charlie by Louis Gabriel Blanchet in 1775 by H. D. Hamilton

Then, on looking through the Pitkin booklet I noticed on page 22 a portrait of Prince Charlie’s younger brother, Henry Benedict, Cardinal York, dressed in his ecclesiastical robes, and this one hangs in London’s National Portrait Gallery.

I looked again at the de la Tour portrait – it was the same face! Not only was it the same face, it was identical. I examined them both closely, and it was all there. The position of the face, the expression, the lighting, the bone structure, the shadows around the eyes, nose, mouth and particularly the cheek and chin – all were identical.

So what’s going on here? De la Tour’s portrait is supposed to be Prince Charlie, of that there can be no doubt. The suit of armour, the blue sash and decorations show he is no churchman.

At a guess it would seem that de la Tour, living, possibly, in Paris, wished for some reason to paint a portrait of the prince, but Charlie, at the time possibly living in Rome, was not able to sit for him. So what did he do? Did he persuade Henry Benedict to sit for him dressed in armour?

No, he did not, and as a portrait painter of long experience I can say this with conviction. An artist who paints the same sitter twice will never get identical results. It’s not just a matter of getting the same position and lighting. There are many other factors involved: the weather, the time of day, the mood and state of health of both artist and sitter, etc. The portraits may be similar, but never identical.

What may have happened here is that de la Tour has dressed someone in a suit of armour (there exists another portrait of the prince in a similar suit of armour painted in Paris by Le Togue in 1745) and when painting the face, he has copied it straight from Henry Benedict’s portrait. Another possibility may be that it was painted in the year 1749, but, knowing that Prince Charlie wasn’t in Paris that year, the artist dated his portrait a year earlier.

On examining the portraits of Prince Charlie’s parents on page two of the Pitkin publication, it is obvious that Prince Henry Benedict takes after his father, the Old Pretender, while Charlie himself has inherited the genes of his mother, the beautiful Polish princess, Clementina Sobieski.

In August 2001 I saw the original of De La Tour’s portrait at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. It is a pastel, its date given as 1748. It was drawn at a time when the French court and public opinion strongly supported the de jure Prince of Wales, whom they regarded as the most glamorous man in Europe. On 11 December 1748 Charles was forcibly seized by the Garde Royale while he was at the opera, bound hand and foot, and bundled unceremoniously out of Paris to appease the Hanovarian government in London.

Sandy Cheyne, artist and rolling stone, plays banjo and rides motor bikes. Last known living in Berlin, but may soon be coming home to Scotland to stay.

This is an article from the April 2002 edition of Leopard Magazine. To read much more like this every month, subscribe to Leopard Magazine.