: Works of Art from the Drambuie Collection
"A rose is a rose is a rose," wrote the American belletrist
Gertrude Stein, who might have concluded otherwise had she
studied the Scottish romantics Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott
more closely.
As Burns and Scott both well knew, the white rose - along with
crowns, oak leaves and assorted other motifs - were once potent,
even treasonable, symbols of Scottish nationalism; a pictorial
pledge of allegiance to the exiled House of Stuart, the rightful
heirs to the throne in the eyes of many Eighteenth Century
Britons.
The deployment of these symbols in the fashionable art of the day
and the tragic saga of the Scottish attempts to reclaim the crown
is told in "Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Royal House of Stuart,
1688-1788," at Winterthur through January 16.
The exhibition of 117 objects - including English and Scottish
glass, paintings, works on paper and medals bearing the likeness,
mottoes or symbols of the exiled dynasty - is drawn from the
holdings of the show's organizer, Drambuie Liqueur Company Ltd.
Not only has the collection not traveled before, it has until now
been seen in Drambuie's corporate headquarters in Edinburgh,
Scotland, by appointment only.
