George II did not enjoy 'setting' for portraiture, preferring the military life to art and artists. Here he is depicted in armour, wearing the ribbon of the Order of the Garter. When his father was proclaimed King George I of Great Britain and Ireland in 1714, George, with his wife Caroline of Absbach and their daughters, moved to England. He was the last British sovereign to fight alongside his soldiers – at the battle of Dettingen in 1743 in Germany – when he was 60 years old.

There is another version of this portrait in the Rijksmuseum, signed and dated 1706, which is the basis for attributing this miniature to Benjamin Arlaud. Arlaud was probably born in Geneva around 1670. His brother was Jacques Antoine, and they came from a family of clockmakers. Not many miniatures can be attributed to him with certainty but his work was of a high quality and he often delineated the eyebrows, upper eyelids and the corners of the eyes with red and shaded the face with greenish grey. George Vertue, the engraver and antiquary, noted he was 'limner to the (King or Queen) till he died – whether he had Salary or not I can't tell' and described him as a 'Master of his Art'. The Royal Archives contain no record of appointment nor of any salary being paid.