Stroehling’s work in the Royal Collection allows us to trace a rare example of continuity between the masters of the Dutch Golden Age and those of the early nineteenth century. Stroehling was brought up in Dusseldorf where a magnificent collection of the polished, classicising and elegant works (often on copper) by artists such as Adriaen van der Werff (1659-1722) had been formed by Johann Wilhelm II, Elector Palatine (1658-1716). Stroehling worked all over Europe but spend much of the first two decades of the nineteenth century in London; between 1810 and 1820 he was even styled ‘Historical Painter to the Prince of Wales’. Stroehling’s work elsewhere tended to be life-sized portraiture, but the Royal Collection has an important group of small-scale portraits on copper, executed with fine detail and a glossy finish; Joseph Farington perceptively referred to them as ‘painted in a Vanderwerfe manner’. Stroehling’s price for these ‘Cabinet Pictures’ was 200 guineas each, an impressive sum in the period even for a life-sized work.

This work belongs in support and format with the set of six paintings of the Queen and her five daughters, commissioned by George IV and delivered to Carlton House in December 1807 (OM 1094-9, 404863, 404869-70, 404866, 404864, 404871), but this one is first mentioned in the collection of Princess Sophia, who bequeathed it to Queen Victoria. The Duke is shown standing in a mountainous landscape, in the uniform of Colonel of the Loyal North Britons, resting his right hand on his broadsword.

Signed: 'Stroehling'