This sober portrait was painted when James’s relationship with Charles was at a low point.  Still bruised by the failure of the 1745, Charles was disgusted by his brother’s appointment - with his father’s connivance - as cardinal in 1747. Then, in 1748, Charles was told to leave France under the terms of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. James ordered him to obey; Charles refused and was arrested, bound, imprisoned and forcibly thrown out of France. For nearly twenty years Charles roamed Europe and wrote only sporadically to his father whom he was never to see again. James’s letters reveal his sadness: ‘Will you not run straight to your father? . . . Is it possible you would rather be a vagabond on the face of the earth than return to a Father who is all love and tenderness for you?’