Morier was a Swiss military and sporting painter who started working for William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland (1721-65) in 1747, when he painted a series of pictures of troops under his command. From 1752 until 1764 he was employed as ‘limner’ (painter) to the Duke on an annual salary of £100; his name also appears regularly in royal accounts from 1764 to 1767. This is a variant on a reduiced scale of Morier's life-size portrait (RCIN 404413). It shows the King mounted on a grey horse, wearing a black tricorn hat and a red military coat over a breast plate with the riband and star of the Garter. French and British troops engage each other in left background, with artillery firing in the middle distance.