This portrait is apparently a contemporary copy, derived from the head and shoulders type that Hudson used in another portrait in the Royal Collection. A watercolour by Charles Wild records the painting hanging in front of the organ in St George’s Hall, Windsor in 1813.

Handel had been encouraged by Queen Anne on his first visits to London in 1712; before her death he had been appointed Kapellmeister to the Elector of Hanover and after the accession of George I he was generously patronised and supported by the new dynasty, he was Music-Master to George II’s daughters and much of his work was composed for royal occasions. In 1734 George II and Queen Caroline were described as ‘both Handelists, ...freezing constantly at his empty Haymarket Opera’.

The painting is in an unusual carved and gilded 18th century frame which is decorated with bulrushes. These may refer to the story of Moses being found in the bulrushes in the Bible and be a reminder of Handel’s support for the Foundling Hospital for abandoned children to which he donated an organ and bequeathed a score of the Messiah.