“There are some 250 objects in this exhibition dedicated to Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobites, but we know that this canteen was personally associated with the prince.
It was originally sent to his exiled court in Rome by a loyal supporter and subsequently brought back with his entourage when he returned to claim the kingdoms of Scotland, England and Ireland for his father, James Stuart, in 1745.
It was left in the baggage train after the defeat at Culloden in 1746, so this exhibition enables us to restore it to the courtly context where it belongs. It can also be seen as a
piece of political propaganda and a seditious object because the cartouche is engraved with the Prince of Wales’s feathers; suggesting Charles Edward Stuart was Prince of Wales back in the 1740s, which could have landed you in bother.
To the Jacobites, however, he became the Prince of Wales on his birth in 1720 and was later made a Knight of the Thistle, the premier order of chivalry in Scotland,which is also evoked by the iconography on the lid.
This object was made by Ebenezer Oliphant – a leading craftsman in Edinburgh – who secured the commission because he was a Jacobite supporter, Scottish society being deeply divided along ideological lines at the time.
Believed to have been a birthday gift for the prince, it would have been made primarily as something to be taken on hunts and represents 18th-century alfresco dining at its finest.
There’s everything from a teaspoon and a corkscrew, to an implement for tasting wine and a marrow scoop. There’s even a nutmeg grater.
Following Culloden, government forces recovered the canteen and the victorious Duke of Cumberland gave it to his aide de camp, George Keppel, the Earl of Albemarle, as a memento of the battle.
It stayed in private hands for years before a fundraising effort enabled the museum
to acquire it and prevent an overseas sale in 1984.
The exhibition treads a similar path to that taken by our Mary, Queen of Scots show four years ago by looking at Bonnie Prince Charlie, the man behind the myth of the young pretender.
This show confronts the high Victorian romance of works such as John Pettie’s painting, Bonnie Prince Charlie Entering the Ballroom at Holyroodhouse, and the Skye Boat Song – which was written by Harold Boulton, an English baronet. At the same time, it examines themes of monarchy and power and the European context of the exiled Jacobite court.
It’s a more textured story than that of the 14 months the prince spent on these shores, and should appeal to overseas audiences as well as the Scottish diaspora who flood into Edinburgh at this time of year.”
Interview by John Holt. Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobites at the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, runs until 12 November
It was originally sent to his exiled court in Rome by a loyal supporter and subsequently brought back with his entourage when he returned to claim the kingdoms of Scotland, England and Ireland for his father, James Stuart, in 1745.
It was left in the baggage train after the defeat at Culloden in 1746, so this exhibition enables us to restore it to the courtly context where it belongs. It can also be seen as a
piece of political propaganda and a seditious object because the cartouche is engraved with the Prince of Wales’s feathers; suggesting Charles Edward Stuart was Prince of Wales back in the 1740s, which could have landed you in bother.
To the Jacobites, however, he became the Prince of Wales on his birth in 1720 and was later made a Knight of the Thistle, the premier order of chivalry in Scotland,which is also evoked by the iconography on the lid.
This object was made by Ebenezer Oliphant – a leading craftsman in Edinburgh – who secured the commission because he was a Jacobite supporter, Scottish society being deeply divided along ideological lines at the time.
Believed to have been a birthday gift for the prince, it would have been made primarily as something to be taken on hunts and represents 18th-century alfresco dining at its finest.
There’s everything from a teaspoon and a corkscrew, to an implement for tasting wine and a marrow scoop. There’s even a nutmeg grater.
Following Culloden, government forces recovered the canteen and the victorious Duke of Cumberland gave it to his aide de camp, George Keppel, the Earl of Albemarle, as a memento of the battle.
It stayed in private hands for years before a fundraising effort enabled the museum
to acquire it and prevent an overseas sale in 1984.
The exhibition treads a similar path to that taken by our Mary, Queen of Scots show four years ago by looking at Bonnie Prince Charlie, the man behind the myth of the young pretender.
This show confronts the high Victorian romance of works such as John Pettie’s painting, Bonnie Prince Charlie Entering the Ballroom at Holyroodhouse, and the Skye Boat Song – which was written by Harold Boulton, an English baronet. At the same time, it examines themes of monarchy and power and the European context of the exiled Jacobite court.
It’s a more textured story than that of the 14 months the prince spent on these shores, and should appeal to overseas audiences as well as the Scottish diaspora who flood into Edinburgh at this time of year.”
Interview by John Holt. Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobites at the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, runs until 12 November