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 date 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 was given to Princess Sophia by George IV and returned to the collection when bequeathed by her to Queen Victoria. The King is standing, with a spaniel at his feet on a terrace overlooking the Quadrangle at Windsor Castle with a view of the Round Tower; he wears Windsor Uniform with the garter, the riband and star of the Order of the Garter and the badge of the Order of the Bath. Signed and dated: 'P. E. Stroehling Windsor 18th November 1807'