There are 35 paintings by 20 different artists hanging on the walls of Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House. This portrait of Electress Sophia of Hanover is positioned over the fireplace of the Saloon, set between plum-coloured marble columns and topped by a classicising pediment. Full-length portraits of King George V and Queen Mary, King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, and King George III and Queen Charlotte hang on the surrounding walls. The role of Electress Sophia, mother of King George I, as the Hanoverian ancestor of the incumbent Royals is thus emphasised. Queen Mary was directly descended from the Electress on her mother’s side, and was often keen to emphasise this connection.  

By the time he contributed paintings to the Dolls’ House project, portraitist Arthur Stockdale Cope had already enjoyed a long association with the Royal Family. Since the beginning of the century, he had painted King Edward VII, King George V, Queen Mary and the Prince of Wales. For the miniature depiction of Electress Sophia, he took inspiration from portraits made during the sitter’s lifetime by Dutch painter Gerrit van Honthorst. Although it is reminiscent of many of Honthorst’s portraits of Sophia (including 408700 and 404423 in the Royal Collection), the dress and composition Cope has chosen match most closely a 1650 portrait now in Ashdown House, Berkshire: the lace-trimmed blue silk bodice with a pearl in the centre, the tilt of the head, the distinctive hand gesture and the inscription at the top have all been meticulously scaled down. Cope has extended the composition beyond the head and shoulders, however, and includes a swathe of ochre robes, the sitter’s other hand and an architectural backdrop.

Queen Mary was apparently delighted with this little work, and asked Cope to paint her portrait ‘in the style of the Old Master’ as he did for ‘[her] ancestor.’