This miniature is inscribed as being after a miniature by George Hayter of 1816, and as being 'finished by G. Hayter', an inscription that provides interesting evidence of collaboration between master and pupil and gives a previously unrecorded earliest date for Collen's training. Collen's treatment as a whole is heavier, with more use of gum than he was prone to use later in his career. Hayter's miniature, signed and dated 1816, was previously recorded in the collection of Leopold III, King of the Belgians, but is no longer in the Belgian Royal Collection. A miniature by Simon-Jacques Rochard of Princess Charlotte of Wales shows her wearing a miniature of this type of Prince Leopold (Holburne Museum, Bath). Prince Leopold is shown in fanciful armour; the description of the armour as that of 'the Black Prince' in an inventory of Queen Victoria's Acquisitions has no basis in fact. He also wears the mantle and collar of the Order of the Garter.

Leopold, Prince of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, later Leopold I, King of the Belgians, third son and seventh and youngest child of Francis An-thony, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and Augusta of Reuss Ebersdorff. He married, in 1816, Charlotte, Princess of Wales, only daughter of George IV, with whom he made his home at Claremont, near Esher. He remained there after her death in childbirth in 1817, and supported his widowed sister Victoria, Duchess of Kent, in the upbringing of her daughter, Princess Victoria, in the 1820s and 1830s. In 1831 he ac-cepted the throne of Belgium, and guided Queen Victoria in his correspondence and personal visits for the following 30 years; it has been said of him that: 'It would be difficult to over-estimate the importance of his close relations with the Queen' (Letters 1907, I, p. 31).

Inscribed on the reverse in ink by an unknown hand: His Serene Highness The Prince Leopold / of Saxe Coburg.-&.&. / Copy by Henry Collen elêve [sic] de GH 1819 / from a miniature by George Hayter 1816, with the words and finished by G Hayter inserted after 1819.