Probably painted around 1735, Highmore’s profile portrait depicts the fifty-year-old Queen dressed in a loose gown lined with an ermine collar. Her hair is coiffed around a jewelled diadem and interlaced with a string of pearls. It is uncertain if Highmore obtained a sitting from the Queen; we know for certain from Vertue that his request was on one occasion denied. The artist’s obituary, which lists a portrait of the Queen, emphasised his ability to ‘take a likeness by memory as well as by sitting’. The companion image of George II was destroyed by fire in 1824 but appears in Charles Wild’s watercolour of the West Ante Room at Carlton House (RCIN 922175) and in an engraving by John Tinney.

Signed: 'Jos: Highmore Pinx'

Text adapted from The First Georgians: Art and Monarchy, 1714-1760, London 2014