This miniature is a copy of the Queen's head from Sir Thomas Gainsborough's portrait in the Royal Collection (RCIN 401007), painted in 1782. It was a very popular portrait and a number of copies were made by several artists. This portrait is painted in an impressionist style with sfumato effect (a softened outline and hazy form).

The artist is thought to be Richard Collins (1755-1831) who was born in Gosport and entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1776 at the age of 21 and exhibited there between 1777 and 1818. When George III visited in 1787, a contemporary observer noted: 'Collins, whose name was on one of the miniature pictures, King admired, and Queen said he had done her portrait for Lady Pembroke'. Collins painted on both ivory and enamel but rarely signed his work. In his portraits of George III, the brush strokes are blended closely together and he achieves a clean, waxy effect with strong highlights and misty eyes. He was appointed Principal Painter in Enamel to George III from 1789, because the King felt sorry for him after the death of his wife in 1788, according to his friend the artist Ozias Humphry.

Set in a rim of pearls with a plain gold back.