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 not longer in the collection, and in 1715 was the first artist to be made a Baronet (the next was John Everett Millais in 1885). A set of portraits of naval heroes was given by George IV to the Royal Naval Hospital in Greenwich in 1824. This is a studio version of a composition which was probably created out of the same sitting as the state portrait (see OM 360, 405677). A better version belongs to the National Portrait Gallery, London; the composition was also engraved by George Vertue in 1718. The sitter is shown wearing the robes and the collar of the Garter; besides him is a table on which rests the plumed hat of the Order with the crown, sceptre and orb.