Early morning at Kilphedir Pool, Sutherland, and the slow-flowing river reflects a radiant sky. The painting has an exhilarating air. Executed by HRH The Prince of Wales, it captures beautifully the blowy capriciousness of Highlands weather: brilliantly sunny one moment, then cool and shady the next.

Kilphedir Pool is one of many paintings of the Scottish landscape by the Prince to feature in an exhibition of his watercolours that has recently opened at the Garrison Chapel in Chelsea. Its 79 works, the best of which bristle with ragged firs, ravines and turbulent weather, will doubtless leave you hankering for a slosh about in the hills. It is the largest-ever display of his paintings, though a minuscule percentage of the approximately 680 he has painted in his lifetime.

Indeed, the Prince has been painting since the 1970s, whenever his official schedule has allowed. He takes his treasured sailcloth and leather painting bag with him on royal tours, in the hope he will have time to use it. 

Though he has described himself as merely “an enthusiastic amateur”, and that he is “appalled” by his early sketches, in fact he is an honorary member of the Royal Academy and the Royal Watercolour Society.

It helps, of course, that he grew up surrounded by Rembrandts, Vermeers, Holbeins and Leonardos, and has spoken fondly of pedalling on his tricycle past “the most marvellous things” hanging on the silk-papered walls at Windsor Castle. His interest, he says, in his introduction to the exhibition, was fostered by his art master Robert Waddell at Gordonstoun.