Previously considered an original copy by the artist, recent conservation has revealed the painting to have been executed in the early 20th century. Many features were added to mislead the original buyer, such as a drawn-on craquelure instead of a crack, darker red paint at the edges to give the impression of faded pigment and incised lines made to resemble stretcher bar lines. The original portrait dated 1717, on which this is based, is in a private collection.

This portrait shows the Catholic claimant to the British throne, James Francis Edward Stuart, as the Jacobite 'James III'. He wears armour and a fur-edged cloak over the blue sash of the Order of the Garter, with the green Order of the Thistle around his neck. Antonio David (1698-1750) was a Swiss-Italian artist and one of the first portraitists James commissioned after establishing his new court at Rome.

James Francis Edward Stuart (1688-1766) was the only son of the Catholic King James II of England and VII of Scotland. In 1688, the Protestant-led 'Glorious Revolution' dethroned the king and replaced him with his Protestant daughter, Mary (1662-1694), and her husband William of Orange (1650-1702). Prince James and his father and mother went into exile at the Château Saint-Germain-en-Laye, under the protection of Louis XIV, until the Treaty of Utrecht forced Louis to expel James from France. He next set up a court-in-exile in Rome, where he married Maria Clementina Sobieksa (1702-35) and had two sons: Charles (1720-1788) and Henry (1725-1807). Later known as the 'Old Pretender', James participated in several unsuccessful plots to reclaim the English throne but was never to see a Stuart restoration; the male line died with Henry Stuart in 1807.