Thanks for your reply. In my case the legend was indeed rendered although it was defined as ExternalLegend, is that a bug or did I misunderstand the expected behavior you describe?

I understand I can renderLegend separately but maybe I'm missing QPainter experience, could you please direct me to how I can modify my code to render the legend separately in a position of my choosing? (for example (100,100)) ?

Thanks as always for your attention and reply,
Frankie