This miniature may have been based on a portrait of the prince by Sir William Beechey (RCIN 403416).

Prince William (1776-1834) was the only son of William Henry, first Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh (1743–1805), a younger brother of George III, and his wife, Maria Walpole, Countess Dowager of Waldegrave. In 1816 he married his cousin, Princess Mary (1776–1857). They had no children.

The identity of the artist is unknown.

Accompanying the miniature is part of the original locket, a glass roundel set with half-pearls, containing a lock of brown hair, and inscribed on the inner side in ink: HRH the Duke of Gloucester.