Kneller was born in Lubeck, studied with Rembrandt in Amsterdam and by 1676 was working in England as a fashionable portrait painter. He painted seven British monarchs (Charles II, James II, William III, Mary II, Anne, George I and George II), though his portraits of Charles II are no longer in the collection; in 1715 Kneller was the first artist to be made a Baronet (the next was John Everett Millais in 1885).

This is one of a pair of portraits of William and Mary of Orange (OM 335 and 338, 405675 and 405674), for which sittings were recorded on the 17th and 20th March 1690 and payment was made in July 1691. The pair was hanging in the Council Chamber at Kensington Palace by 1697. The King is shown in Coronation robes and the images were much copied for British embassies abroad, indication that they functioned as the official images of the King and Queen - the 'State Portraits'. The robes the King wears and the way in which Kneller arranges his portrait is strongly reminiscent of Van Dyck's state portrait of Charles I (OM 145, 404398): perhaps the newly-arrived Dutch King wishes to remind his subjects that he is Charles I's grandson.

The King is shown wearing robes of State with an ermine-lined mantle; the regalia rests on a red cloth-covered table on the right.