Join us for this fascinating lecture either in-person at the museum, or online in Zoom. Professor Robert Frost will talk about his new book on an intriguing portrait of Bonnie Prince Charlie in Polish dress, owned by the National Portrait Gallery in London, which has never been put on public display. Experts in Stuart portraiture have questioned its authenticity, but nobody, up until now, has researched the painting properly, despite the fact that Bonnie Prince Charlie’s mother, Clementina Sobieska, was Polish. This lecture will consider the provenance of the painting, which is linked to the Macdonalds of Kinlochmoidart. It will examine the neglected topic of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s Polish family, and the long story of the cultural relations between Poland and Scotland, which may help explain when and why the portrait was painted. It will also consider the question of likeness in eighteenth-century portraiture, since this is the main reason why the experts have questioned the portrait’s authenticity.
Robert Frost holds the Burnett Fletcher Chair of History at the University of Aberdeen. After teaching at King’s College London from 1987, he moved to Aberdeen in 2004, and is currently writing a three-volume history of the Polish-Lithuanian Union for Oxford University Press. Volume One won the Pro Historia Polonorum Prize for the best foreign-language book on Polish history published between 2012 and 2017.
Date: Tuesday 4th October, 5.30pm
Venue: West Highland Museum
Ticket price: £3
To book for the ONLINE and IN-PERSON event please contact the museum:
Email: info@westhighlandmuseum.org.uk
Phone: 01397 702169
A Zoom link will be emailed to those attending online
