Prince Charles Edward Stuart, also called the Young Pretender, was born in Rome in 1720, the eldest son of the Old Pretender, King James III and of Princess Clementine. Because of the defects of his father's character, he soon became the focus of the Jacobite cause. As early as 1740, he planned a military expedition to England with the help of France. Despite the help of the Maréchal de Saxe the invasion failed and France soon withdrew. Five years later, having borrowed 180,000 livres and pawned his jewels, he embarked for Scotland. The Highland clans quickly rallied the Jacobite army, and led by Lord George Murray, they defeated the English. But on the way to London, Murray and the senior officers, concerned by the lack of support in England, persuaded Charles Edward to retreat to Scotland. The Jacobites were eventually defeated by the English on Culloden Moor on 16 April 1745. Despite the large bounty on his head, the Prince was able to flee to the Hebrides, where he stayed for few months before being picked up by a French ship.
The Aix-la-Chapelle treaty of 1748 expelled him from France and his movements for the next ten years are little known. In 1766, after the death of his father, he joined his brother, the Cardinal of York, in Rome. In 1772, in exchange for a pension from France, Charles Edward married Louisa, Princess of Stolberg. But his drinking led to the failure of his marriage, and Louisa eventually left him for the poet Alfieri. Charles Edward moved to Florence to be with his illegitimate daughter, the Duchess of Albany, and stayed there until his death in 1788.
The present pastel relates to the youth of the young Pretender. Prince Charles Edward Stuart began his Italian Tour in 1734 after having participated in the siege of Gaeta, aged only 14. He travelled with Lord Dunbar under the name of the Count of Albany. Charles Edward arrived in Venice on 28 May 1737 but remained there for less than two weeks since the British government protested at the warm welcome the Venetian Senate's gave to the Prince. During their brief stay, Lord Dunbar wrote to Owen O'Rourke, a Jacobite agent in Vienna, and told him of the Prince's occupations in Venice. On 22 June O'Rourke sent news to the Prince's father in Rome, and mentioned in the postscript a 'Prince's picture drawn by the famous Rosalba, of which he is so obliging as to send me a copy', Stuart Papers, vol. 198, letter 41, quoted by F.J.B. Watson, op. cit., p. 333. On 9 August the prince's father James Stuart replied that 'Lord Dunbar left directions at Venice that the Prince's picture should be sent to you [O'Rourke] when finished, but the woman who draws it is old and has a good dale (sic) of work on her hands', F.J.B. Watson, op. cit., p. 333. That the pastel was sent to Vienna is unclear since it seems to have arrived in Rome before November 1737 as is documented by the Pretender's personal expenses: 'Pagati per porta a spese fino a Palazzo d'una Cassetta d'un ritratto del Principe, Venuto de Venezia' [Paid for the transport to the palace of a box of a portrait of the Prince, coming from Venice], F.J.B. Watson, op. cit., p. 333.
It is not known how the present pastel reached Dresden but Augustus III, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, was one of the most fervent collectors of Venetian art in the 18th Century. He continued the tradition of patronage his father had begun at Dresden by commissioning, often through Algarotti, numerous works by Venetian painters. He was also able to obtain works from the many Venetian artists who travelled to Dresden: Pellegrini, Diziani, Sebastiano Ricci, Bellotto and Antonio Zucchi, the engraver. Augustus III acquired the famous collection of old masters from the Dukes of Modena, but his favourite contemporary artist was Rosalba Carriera, F. Haskell, Patrons and Painters, New Haven and London, 1980, p. 295. Augustus III met Carriera during his travels in Italy before he became Elector. Throughout his reign Augustus III managed to buy more than 150 of her works, either directly from her or from collectors. When the last King of Saxony abdicated in 1918, negotiations caused some of the works on display in the Dresden Gallery to be returned. Negotiations were finalized only in 1924, but some works must have left earlier: this and the following pastel were already in Count Palffy's sale in 1924. It is interesting to note that both the present and the following lots are still in their original frames, similar to those in which the other pastels at Dresden are still exhibited.
This composition was copied less than a year after it was finished by Antonio Guardi: he had received the commission from the Feld-marschall Schulenburg for his gallery. Schulenburg, who lived in Venice on a pension from the Venetian Senate as a reward for his victory over the Turks at Corfu in 1716, was then forming a large collection of old master and contemporary pictures and had hired the young Guardi to copy paintings for his gallery. Schulenburg's accounts, published by Morassi (Antonio Guardi ai servigi del Feldmaresciallo Schulenburg, Emporium, April 1960, p. 160) mention a payment made on 28 May 1738 'Contati per la Copia del Ritratto della Sig: na Rosalba del figlio del Pretendente al Sig:r Antonio Gardi lire sedici' [Payment for a copy of the portrait by Rosalba of the son of the Pretender to Antonio Guardi, 16 lire]. That painting was probably the one formerly in Paul Wallraf's collection, F.J.B. Watson, op. cit., fig. 3.
A pastel of the Young Pretender by Maurice-Quentin de la Tour datable to circa 1748, now in the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, was sold in these Rooms, 10 June 1994, lot 25, illustrated.
An autograph version of the pastel of similar size, with minor differences, is in a Roman private collection, B. Sani, op. cit., no. 313, fig. 273.