After the death in 1817 of George IV’s daughter, Princess Charlotte, the younger sons of George III realised that they had the opportunity (and perhaps even obligation) to father a monarch. One of the three dynastic marriages of 1818 was that between Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge, and Augusta, Princess of Hesse-Kassel. The Duke commissioned this portrait of his wife on the occasion of his marriage. Painted towards the end of his career, at a time which Sir Thomas Lawrence was the most fashionable portrait painter in England, Beechey seems here quite cravenly to adopt his rival’s manner.