It is entitled The Batttle of Culloden fought April 16 1746 but depicts only a portion of the Hanoverian army across its 4ft 4in x 2ft 2in (1.27m x 66cm) gauze. Clearly something more spectacular was planned but even this panel remains unfinished.
While King George's Redcoat army of cavalry, foot soldiers and cannon are stitched in coloured silk threads, the bottom right-hand section remains unworked. The drawings of soldiers to the foreground were probably inked in later.
But what remains is fascinating. While the source of the composition is unknown, research reveals the uniforms to be accurate for the period suggesting the work was conceived close to the date of the battle, perhaps sometime in the 1760s.
A detail to the far right showing a captured Jacobite and a caricatured black man also appears to refer to a little known incident in the battle when one Colonel McNaughton and his Jamaican servant were captured by the Duke of Cumberland's men.
Offered for sale by Bonhams in Edinburgh on August 22-24, the panel - that had been exhibited in a Scottish Art and Antiquities Exhibition of 1931 - sold to one of three interested parties at £3600.
