Kneller was born in Lubeck, studied with Rembrandt in Amsterdam and by 1676 was working in England as a fashionable portrait painter. He painted seven British monarchs (Charles II, James II, William III, Mary II, Anne, George I and George II), though his portraits of Charles II are not longer in the collection, and in 1715 was the first artist to be made a Baronet (the next was John Everett Millais in 1885). A set of portraits of naval heroes was given by George IV to the Royal Naval Hospital in Greenwich in 1824.

This is a studio work bringing together the head from the 1716 portrait (OM 343, 406073) and the pose of the 'Garter portrait' (OM 361, 405892). The canvas has been extended at the top and was originally of a very unusual straight-arched-straight outline, presumably to fit a particular setting. The crown on the table must have been added after 1727, assuming the portrait to have been painted in Kneller's life-time.