PRINT OF DUNCAN FORBES, LORD CULLODEN
19TH CENTURY
£440
Fine Furniture and Works of Art
Auction: 2 May 2018 at 11:00 BST
Description
the half length portrait with white highlights, on paper in oval mount, titled within 'Duncan Forbes of Culloden born 1685 - died 1747, from a picture in the possession of Lord Meadowbank'
Dimensions
Frame 38.5cm x 49cm, oval 28cm high
Footnote
Note: Duncan Forbes, Lord Culloden (10 Nov 1685-10 December 1747) was a Scottish politician in the first half of the 18th century. During his years at school in Inverness he and his brother became well known for their sociable nature, and were branded 'the greatest boozers in the north'. Indeed, on the death of his mother in 1716, Forbes and the rest of the funeral party became so drunk that they turned up to the burial place, only to find they had forgotten the body!
In his later years, ill health having curbed his alcohol consumption, Forbes became increasingly politically active, particularly in the Whig cause. During the Jacobite uprising of 1715 he was notable for his loyalty to the Hanoverian cause, his brother joined forces with the infamous Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat, to raise forces in support of the government. However, his increasingly public admonitions of the way the rebel prisoners were treated after the Battle of Sherrifmuir, aligned him more and more with the Jacobite cause. In the lead up to the 1745 uprising, Forbes travelled to the highlands to talk to many of the clan leaders, particularly Lovat, in an attempt to dissuade them from supporting the Stuart claim to the throne. After Culloden he was again vocal about the cruelties inflicted by the Duke of Cumberland. It has therefore been considered that while not an outward Jacobite he may well have been a secret sympathiser hoping for political solution rather than military.
The increasing stress caused by his difficult position during the uprising ultimately lead to his death in 1747, however his legacy had by then become one of endeavouring for humanity, rather than of drunken prowess.