This unusual portrait of Queen Charlotte in profile, which enables us to fully appreciate her sparkling head-dress and jewellery, has an immediacy that suggests it was painted from life, during the year following her wedding and coronation.

Charlotte (1744–1818) was the second daughter of Duke Charles Louis Frederick of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1708–52) and his wife, Elizabeth Albertina of Saxe-Hildburghausen (1713–61). She married George III in 1761. 'She looks very sensible, cheerful, and is remarkably genteel', wrote Horace Walpole, the art historian and writer. It was a happy marriage, as their contemporary, Frances Burney, observed: 'Their behaviour to each other speaks the most cordial confidence and happiness … in their different ways, and allowing for the difference of their characters, they left me equally charmed both with their behaviour to each other and to myself'. They had 15 children.

The identification of the monogram JR has not been established.

Signed and dated on the left: JR / 1762, and set in a narrow gold frame with surround and loop of half-pearls, engraved at the back with her monogram CR 1762 surmounted by a crown.

Catalogue entry adapted from George III and Queen Charlotte: Patronage, Collecting and Court Taste (2004).