The daughter of James I, Elizabeth Stuart married Frederick V, Elector Palatine, in 1613 and took up residence at Heidelberg Castle, where a magnificent garden was created for her. In 1619 Frederick was offered the throne of Bohemia, where the couple reigned until their defeat at the Battle of the White Mountain in 1620. The brevity of their reign earned them the nicknames 'Winter King' and 'Winter Queen'. The couple spent their remaining years in exile in the Dutch Republic, where they brought up their many children. The Hanoverian claim to the throne (and that of all subsequent British monarchs) derives from the Act of Settlement of 1701, which named the Electress Sophia of Hanover (1630-1714), Elizabeth of Bohemia's youngest daughter (and not yet born at the time of this painting), as the most direct Protestant heir to the throne.

Poelenburgh was a Roman Catholic and (like many Italianate painters) a native of Utrecht, the most Catholic of Dutch cities. He studied there with Abraham Bloemaert before travelling to Rome in 1617, where he remained until 1627. Poelenburgh enjoyed an international reputation during his lifetime: working for Cosimo II de’ Medici in Florence in 1620–21 and for Charles I in London off and on from 1637 to 1641. The rest of his career was spent in Utrecht, where he received important commissions from local aristocrats and from Prince Fredrick Henry of Orange.

This is a good seventeenth-century copy of an original Poelenburgh, known through two versions (Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest and Castle Museum, Anhalt) both signed and dated 1628 and both bearing a Charles I's brand on the reverse.