This enamel after a watercolour by Franz Winterhalter shows the sitter head and shoulders in profile to the right, wearing a black garment trimmed in yellow-brown fabric and fringed, with a pink and white pagri over a dark orange band; sporting a moustache and beard, with emerald earrings; set against a plain white background.

The youngest son of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, Duleep Singh (1838-93) was declared Maharaja of the Punjab at the age of five in 1843. Following the British annexation of the territory in 1849 he was forced to renounce all claims of sovereignty in exchange for a British government pension of £40,000 per year. He converted to Christianity in 1853 and settled in England in 1854. In July that year he sat to Winterhalter for the well-known full length portrait commissioned by Queen Victoria (RCIN 403843). He adopted the life of a country squire, buying a house, Hatherop in Gloucestershire, and renting a sporting estate in Scotland. He eventually became disaffected and embittered with the British, reverted to his former faith, Sikhism, and launched a renewed claim on the Punjab. Although he had plans to return to India he died in France in 1893, having latterly achieved a reconciliation with Queen Victoria.

The artist John Simpson (active 1831-71) known for his miniature portraits, exhibited in London from 1831 to 1871.