4 - The Prince in Scotland

Summary

This chapter looks at the visual and material culture of Jacobitism focusing on a heterogeneous group of objects in the collections of the NMS, V&A and BM, that are defiantly Jacobite in their content and intent. These objects range across media, and across the artistic hierarchies of the so–called fine and decorative arts. There are one–off larger than life portraits of the Jacobite figure heads and their families painted by court artists in the cosmopolitan urban centres of Europe, which were then mass-produced as engravings and published as prints; objects with a distinctive cultural currency, like coins and medals, engraved glassware and embroidered textiles. There are items of dress and adornment, including fans, garters and snuffboxes, that formed part of a corporeal culture of display and concealment. Some of the objects are gendered; others are anamorphic and shape-shifting. Many objects carry inscribed textual mottoes, sometimes in Latin that quote directly from texts including Vergil’s Aeneid. Using the body as a synthesising thematic, the chapter aims to chart the associations of Jacobitism with Scotland though the use of cross–media images and objects, while at the same time, highlighting the possibilities of using such material as tools for historical enquiry.