Take a look at the official birthday portrait

The inspiration: Captain Frederick Gustavus Burnaby

Relaxed and informal, the Prince of Wales cuts a dashing figure in his uniform as Colonel of the Welsh Guards in his official birthday photograph released today – almost, but not quite, as relaxed as the 19th-century Army officer whose louche portrait inspired today’s picture.

He was Frederick Gustavus Burnaby, an officer in the Household Cavalry who was, variously, a balloonist, adventurer, Times correspondent, bestselling author and, reputedly, the strongest man in the British Army. Legend has it that he once carried a pony under one arm.

Times Archive, 1948: A son born to Princess Elizabeth

The Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh, was safely delivered of a Prince at 9.14 today

Multimedia

• Archive blog: Prince's alter ego a bounder

Related Links

• You’re an inspiration, young Princes tell Charles

Multimedia

• Pictures: Prince Charles

In the celebrated 1870 portrait by James Jacques Tissot, which hangs in the National Portrait Gallery, Burnaby is depicted sprawled on a divan, smoking a cigarette and generally being about as horizontal as is decently possible for a Captain of the Royal Horse Guards. In his birthday photograph by Hugo Burnand, Prince Charles is not quite so horizontal, nor indeed smoking, but the resemblance is plain to see; the casual pose, the red stripe of his trousers, the left arm draped over the back of the chair.

The picture was taken in February at the end of a session of more formal portraits in the library at Clarence House. Mr Burnand, who took the photographs of the Prince’s wedding to the Duchess of Cornwall, said: “It is quite a personal portrait. You feel you are almost in conversation with him.

“He was keen in this picture to be seated rather than standing. That was his idea, and we ran with it. He knew how he wanted to sit. We did not have the Burnaby picture with us, but we all conjured it up in our minds.”

The Prince could hardly have chosen a more colourful character for his inspiration. Educated at Harrow and Oswestry School and in Germany, 6ft 4in Burnaby entered the Royal Horse Guards in 1859 only to find himself frustrated by the lack of active service. Instead, he made the first solo balloon crossing of the English Channel, undertook a 3,000-mile horseback journey across the Russian steppe in winter (the subject of one of his bestselling books), travelled with General Gordon in the Sudan and, as a correspondent for The Times, accompanied the Carlist forces across Spain in 1874 during the Third Carlist War.

A second horseback journey through Asia Minor, in which he fought for the Turks against the Russians, provided the material for another book.

His hopes of seeing action in the Egyptian Campaign of 1882 dashed, “Colonel Fred” took part – without official leave – in the Suakin campaign, and was wounded at El Teb. Undeterred, he joined a relief expedition to relieve General Gordon, under siege by the Mahdi’s army at Khartoum.

It was to prove his last adventure. He died aged 42 in hand-to-hand fighting at the Battle of Abu Klea in January 1885. A marble memorial was erected in his honour in Holy Trinity Church, Windsor, by the Prince of Wales of the time and fellow officers.

ATTRACTION OF OPPOSITES

Prince Charles

Height: 5ft 10in

Interests: Rainforests, architecture, Shakespeare

Most popular work: Highgrove, Portrait of an Estate

Quotes: On being Prince of Wales: “Listen to advice, which you can then decide whether to take or not. Every now and then, intuition will tell you that advice is not perhaps the right thing”

Burnaby

Height: 6ft 4in

Interests: Fighting, travelling, ballooning, more fighting

Most popular work: Burnaby: A Ride to Khiva, an account of his journey across Russia

Quotes: Burnaby on Burnaby: “I have, unfortunately for my own interests, from my earlier childhood had what my old nurse used to call a most ‘contradictorious’ spirit”