This miniature is an unfinished sketch of the Duchess. She is wearing a veil similar to the one she is depicted with in another miniature (RCIN 420968) and this painting was probably done at about the same time.

In 1774, she married Lady Georgiana Spencer married the 5th Duke of Devonshire and soon became a fashion icon. She popularised the three-foot ostrich-feather headdress, extravagant hair towers and the free-flowing muslin dress that was simply tied by a ribbon around the waist. She also, however, became addicted to gambling, and later: 'But my heart now feels an emptiness in the beau monde which cannot be filled … nobody can think how much I am tired sometimes with the dissipation I live in'. Georgiana became enthusiastically involved in politics and, during the French invasion scare of 1778, she formed a female 'battalion' of leading Whig women, who dressed in the style of their husbands' regiments and accompanied the men to the military training camps. Her support for the Whig party in the Westminster election of 1786 brought accusations from the Morning Post that she was exchanging kisses for votes. She did finally stop gambling, but she was never able to pay off her debts. Her domestic arrangements sparked gossip and disapproval as she and the Duke lived with Lady Elizabeth Foster, her best friend, who bore the Duke two illegitimate children and became his second wife in 1809, after Georgiana's death.

Jeremiah Meyer (1735-89) was born in Germany and his father was portrait painter to the Duke of Württemberg. He came to England about 1749 and studied under the artist Christian Friedrich Zincke. Meyer was commissioned to paint the King's miniature portrait, set in an oval of diamonds in the pearl bracelet given to Princess Charlotte as an engagement present. He also drew the King's profile for the new coinage which earned him a gold medal from the Society of Arts in 1761. He was appointed Miniature Painter to the Queen and Enamel Painter to the King in 1764. A founder member of the Royal Academy, he exhibited miniatures, enamels and watercolour drawings from 1769 to 1783. When he died, according to a contemporary, Charlotte Papendiek, Meyer's widow sent his remaining miniatures, including portraits of the royal family, to the sitters without making a charge. The Queen was so pleased that 'she liberally rewarded Mrs Meyer for her honourable conduct'.

Catalogue entry adapted from Masterpieces in Little: Portrait Miniatures from the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen (1992).