The Prince of Wales was invested in the most noble and historic Order of the Garter at Windsor in June 1911 and this painting presumably commemorates that occasion. It was given to King George V by Queen Mary and the Prince of Wales and exhibited at the Royal Academy, 1912 (209). The King wrote to the Prince of Wales on 7 June, 1912: ‘…I thank you for the excellent picture of yourself which you and Mama have so kindly given me, I think it is an excellent likeness & I like it very much & propose to hang it at Windsor when it leaves the Acadamy [sic].’ The Studio magazine, in a review of the Royal Academy exhibition, also considered it, along with Llewellyn’s portrait of the Queen (RCIN 402024), to be ‘very much better than the general run of official paintings…’ (Volume 56, 1912). Son of the artist Charles West Cope, a successful history and genre painter, Arthur Stockdale Cope trained at Carey's Art School and the Royal Academy schools. He undertook numerous prestigious portrait commissions, notably of King Edward VII, George V, and Kaiser Wilhelm II (see RCINs 405245, 407425, 407679). He went on to establish his own portrait practice, exhibiting 288 works at the Royal Academy and the Royal Society of Portrait Painters between 1876 and 1935. In 1900 he became a fellow of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters; in 1910 he was elected Royal Academician; and in 1917 he was knighted. The frame is by Charles D Soar, 1 Launceston Place, Kensington.