Clementina Maria Sophia Walkinshaw (1726-1802)

Clementina Maria Sophia Walkinshaw lived one of the most remarkable and troubled lives of the eighteenth century. A Scottish woman of Jacobite sympathies, she became the long-term mistress and companion of Charles Edward Stuart — Bonnie Prince Charlie — following the defeat of the 1745 rising, and bore him a daughter, Charlotte. Her relationship with Charles was turbulent and ultimately ended when he sent her away in 1760. She lived in continental Europe for decades, supported by Jacobite networks, and died in Fribourg, Switzerland in 1802. The 1800 date on this portrait, made near the end of her long life, reflects a woman looking back across decades of exile and political failure. Ramsay's connection to this world — he had painted Flora MacDonald and moved in Jacobite-sympathetic Edinburgh circles — makes this attribution plausible, though portraits of Walkinshaw are rare and questions of attribution complicate several surviving likenesses.

A portrait painted near 1800, if by the elder Ramsay, would be a very late work or more likely a posthumous studio piece — Ramsay died in 1784. The work may be by a follower or later copyist working from an earlier likeness, or alternatively a misattribution. The handling would need close examination to assess autograph quality versus studio or later copy.