This miniature is not part of the group of eighty-eight portraits of progenitors of the Hanoverians which was assembled by Queen Caroline in her Closet at Kensington Palace in the early eighteenth century, but was probably acquired in the early to mid-nineteenth century. It does, however, have some affinity with two other miniatures in this group by Jean Michelin (c. 1623-1696) (420628 and 420624). Michelin worked for the Hanoverian court from 1668 until 1686 and favoured imperial costume for sitters from the House of Brunswick whom he portrayed in miniature. The present miniature is not, however, of the same quality as his work. The inscription on the reverse has been cut, suggesting that the work has been trimmed. John Frederick, third son of George, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg-Kalenburg, succeeded in 1665 to the Duchies of Kalenberg and Grubenhagen on the death of his eldest brother Christian Ludwig. Inscribed on the reverse in a nineteenth-century hand: 'Jean Frede..uc de Brunschweig et Luneburgh'.