George Jamesone

(Aberdeen circa 1589-1644)

Portrait of King Donald III of Scotland, half-length, wearing a gold robe trimmed with blue and a blue cap trimmed with ermine

Footnotes

Provenance
Council of Edinburgh 1633
Marquis of Lothian
His sale, 1970s
Private Collection, California

Literature
D. Thomson, 'The Life and Art of George Jamesone' in Studies in the History of Art and Architecture, Oxford, 1974, p. 97, no. 54

This significant recent re-discovery is one of the famous series of historical portraits of Scottish kings commissioned by the Council of Edinburgh as part of the magnificent display of pageantry to mark King Charles I's triumphal entry into the city in 1633 - the first time Charles had returned to the land of his birth since his accession in 1625. The artist employed was the Aberdonian, George Jamesone, who had recently moved to the capital and established himself as the pre-eminent Scottish portraitist. The route of the monarch's entry consisted of seven triumphal arches, designed to reinforce Charles's place in a very ancient line of Scottish monarchs. Once totalling over 100, less than a quarter of the portraits are known to have survived into modern times. Those still extant include the portraits of Robert the Bruce and William Wallace currently on display at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. The present example is one of a group of 26 works that were sold from the collection of the Marquises of Lothian at Newbattle Abbey in the 1970s. It was subsequently re-discovered in California, where it was described simply as a Portrait of an unknown European king.

Donald III of Scotland (or Donald Bane/Donald the Fair) is best known as Shakespeare's infant Donaldbain in MacBeth. Following the murder of his father, King Duncan I, Donald fled to Ireland for fear that he too would be killed. After MacBeth's death the Scottish throne was restored to Donald's elder brother Malcolm III. At that time the custom would have been for Donald to succeed his brother but Malcolm excluded him as his heir in favour of his sons. Nevertheless, following the death of Malcolm and his Queen, Margaret, Donald invaded Edinburgh and seized the crown. In 1094 he was replaced by his nephew, but the reign of Duncan II was short-lived, Donald taking back the throne, but only until he was in turn blinded and imprisoned by Malcolm and Margaret's eldest son, Edgar. He died shortly after.