Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex, was the ninth child of King George III, and the only one of his sons who did not pursue a career in the army or navy. Instead, he was known for his liberal views; a staunch advocate for the abolition of the slave trade, Catholic emancipation and the removal of existing restrictions on Jews, he was a man at the forefront of social change at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

The present oil sketch was likely executed by Wilkie in early 1832, as a preliminary idea for his full-length of the Prince in his capacity as Earl of Inverness, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1833 and presented to Queen Victoria the same year (Royal Collection, Buckingham Palace, RCIN 405420). Wilkie had by this date developed a rough, painterly style for his life-sized works, which owed something to Rembrandt but a great deal to Reynolds and Raeburn. Between this first sketch for the portrait and the final full-length a few changes were made; for instance, he is shown holding rather than wearing his chieftain's plumed bonnet. In both versions the key note is the romance of Caledonian splendour, the fierce, proud and independent spirit of the Highlander, something which entered the mainstream of European culture at this date.

A note on the provenance:
Basil Hall, the purchaser of the sketch at Wilkie’s estate sale in 1842, was an officer in the Royal Navy and a noted traveller. As part of a diplomatic mission to China in 1813, he explored Java and undertook surveys of west coast of Korea and the outlying Ryukyu Islands of Japan. In 1817 he was able to interview Napoleon, who had been an acquaintance of his father’s, in his exile on St. Helena. His final voyage before retiring from the Navy took him to the west coast of South America in 1820. On his return to England in 1823 he published his journal under the title Extracts from a Journal Written on the Coasts of Chile, Peru and Mexico. In addition to these far-flung adventures, the Edinburgh-born Hall was also part of the circle that included Wilkie and the great writer Sir Walter Scott, a connection that led to his purchase of Wilkie’s portrait shortly before his own death in 1844.