The face of Bonnie Prince Charlie has been recreated using death masks that depict him as he would have looked during the Jacobite rising of 1745.
The prince, who was renowned for his good looks, has captivated a new generation of interest through the TV show Outlander.
A team at the University of Dundee’s Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification has produced what is said to be the most lifelike replica of the prince’s face so far.
It shows him with blond ringlets, wearing a white shirt, and with blotchy patches on his skin, as he would have looked at the time of the Jacobite rising – his unsuccessful attempt to restore his father, James Francis Edward Stuart, to the British throne.
Death masks of the prince were photographed and mapped by researchers, so 3D models could be produced with state-of-the-art software, allowing experts to de-age the prince.
Barbora Veselá, a master’s student who initiated the project, said: “I have looked at previous reconstructions of historical figures and was interested as to how these could be done differently.
“I wanted to create an image of what he would have looked like during the Jacobite rising. There are death masks of Bonnie Prince Charlie that are accessible, while some are in private collections.
“We also know that he suffered a stroke before he died, so that made the process of age regression even more interesting to me.”
In 1745, at the age of 24, Prince Charles Edward Stuart sought to regain the Great British throne for his father, the exiled King James III of England and Ireland and VIII of Scotland.
Despite some initial successes on the battlefield, his army was defeated by government forces at the Battle of Culloden, near Inverness, in April 1746.
Bonnie Prince Charlie spent the next five months as a fugitive before fleeing to France and living on the continent for the rest of his life. His endeavours created one of the most romanticised periods of Scottish history.
When the prince died after a stroke, aged 67, in Palazzo Muti, Rome, a cast of his face was taken, which was common for notable figures at the time.
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Researchers examined copies of the masks, at Inverness Museum and Art Gallery and The Hunterian at the University of Glasgow, and created a composite over several months.
Veselá took photographs from all around the masks and used photogrammetry software to establish a 3D model using almost 500 images.
She said: “It has been a pleasure to work with these artefacts. The access I have been given has been incredible. There are moments, when you are working with the masks, that it suddenly strikes you that this was once a living person.
“Beauty is a very subjective thing but Bonnie Prince Charlie does have distinctive features, such as his nose and his eyes, that encourage you to study him. Hopefully this recreation encourages people to think about him as a person, instead of just a legend.”
The work will feature as part of the University of Dundee’s annual master’s show, which opens to the public on Saturday.