This miniature can be dated on the basis of the costume to c. 1690. The sitter wears armour with a lace cravat tied with a blue ribbon and a red sash over his right shoulder. The subject has traditionally been identified as Ernest Augustus, Elector of Hanover (1629-98). Although there is some resemblance between the sitter and acknowledged portraits of the Elector (see, for example, 420624), it is uncertain whether the likely age of the the Elector of Hanover, who died in his sixty-ninth year in 1698, can be correlated with that of this sitter, who appears to be aged about forty c. 1690. The miniature is by an unknown artist of the German school and was extensively repaired in the nineteenth century, with retouching to the face and the background.