The Duke, Queen Victoria's uncle, is wearing a Hanoverian Field-Marshal's uniform with the ribbon and star of the Garter and the star of the Guelphic Order. His daughter, Princess Augusta, wrote to Queen Mary in 1908 that there had been some indecision as to which uniform her father should wear for the portrait, but 'then the Hanoverian was decided for, he having worn this longest and in his most important time of life'. In the distance is the Waterloo monument in Hanover, probably a reference to the Duke's position first as his father's representative in Hanover, and then as Viceroy there.

The painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1839.