Lost portrait of Charles Edward Stuart
| The Lost Portrait of Charles Edward Stuart |
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| Artist | Allan Ramsay |
| Year | 1745 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | (12 inches × 10 inches ) |
| Location | Scottish National Portrait Gallery |
The "lost portrait" of Charles Edward Stuart is a portrait, painted in late autumn 1745 by Scottish artist Allan Ramsay, of Charles Edward Stuart, also known as the Young Pretender or Bonnie Prince Charlie.
The painting was discovered by art dealer and art historian Dr Bendor Grosvenor at Gosford House, the home of the Earl of Wemyss near Edinburgh, and was authenticated by the Ramsay authority Dr Duncan Thomson, former Director of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, where the painting is now held.
In 2009, Grosvenor revealed that the subject of the most well-known portrait of Charles Edward Stuart, the 5ft pastel by the French artist Maurice Quentin de La Tour that had been hanging in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery since 1994, was in fact of Charles's brother Henry Benedict Stuart. This portrait had until then been widely reproduced and was "immortalised on countless tins of shortbread", as well as appearing in the entry for Charles in the Dictionary of National Biography and countless book covers, postcards and souvenirs. Grosvenor said: "Bonnie Prince Charlie is one of my heroes, and I always felt bad about debunking what used to be his most famous portrait. So I'm delighted to have found the best possible replacement – a portrait painted from life on the eve of his invasion of England." Whilst attempting to find this replacement – an authentic painting of Charles from the period of the Jacobite rising of 1745 – Grosvenor discovered a letter in the Royal Archives from John Stuart, the valet to Charles, that instructed Ramsay to go to Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh to paint Charles's portrait:
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