So I have this headcanon/idea based on some tags I got on one of my fanarts… (ok I’m totally running with it, and it’s in one of my fics)
What if Thomas and Miranda had another portrait commissioned, one of the three of them together? Maybe it never quite got finished, but what if it did?
Miranda found the artist, someone young and skilled in realism and taking commissions for portraits by various families, but not well known (and later forgotten by history).
So they decided on it some time before James had to leave for Nassau the first time around, so of course they wanted to have his section of it completed first.
They had some issues figuring out the layout, and who stood where. They wanted to ave James in the centre, but he refused and didn’t feel comfortable, so eventually they agreed to have Thomas in the centre. They wanted to also have it as regular scene, with someone sitting and reading or writing, rather than a stiff, posed portrait.
Only the three of them and the artist (and perhaps others in the studio) knew about it, not even Peter Ashe. it was mostly completed by the time James returned and they were excited to show it to him, but they never had the chance.
So the artist was stuck with it, and she kept it in her studio, she likely knew about their situation or at least could have guessed and must have heard all the rumours about what happened to them when they disappeared.
Many, many years later, after the artist dies, it’s found in her studio labeled as a commission for the Hamilton family, at which point it’s taken to the decedents of Thomas siblings or cousins or something. They’re largely confused by it because they don’t really know who it is, only guess based on stories they’ve heard, but they admire the work and hang it up somewhere or keep it in a collection. At some point everyone forgets who the mysterious people in it are and it gets donated to a museum or gallery, and it on public display somewhere.
Both the artist and the sitters unknown. Simply labeled as “Hamiltons” because that’s what the note on the back left by the artist says.
oh my god that makes James one of the Hamiltons, I’m dead
oh. I – oh. oh no. That’s –
*shuffles away to have a cry*
Meg's Mumbles 