After the miniature of Prince Maurice by Nathaniel Thach in the Royal Collection (420684). Thach's miniature is in turn derived from a three-quarter-length oil painting of which there is a version at Schloss Marienburg, near Hanover, possibly by Jan de Baen (1633 – 1702).

John Simpson (1811-after 1871) was trained as a porcelain painter at the Derby porcelain factory before moving to London in 1845. He soon established a practice as a miniature painter specialising in works on enamel, and fulfilled the first of many commissions for Queen Victoria, including the present miniature, in that year. He is last recorded describing himself at the end of his career as a 'photographic artist' (1871 census return); the date of his death is not known.

Prince Maurice, Count Palatine of the Rhine (1621 – 52), fourth son of Frederick V, King of Bohemia, and Elizabeth, daughter of James I. Maurice served as a colonel in the Royalist cavalry throughout the Civil War and then joined the squadron of ships that had defected to the Royalist cause. He was lost at sea near the Virgin Islands during a hurricane in 1652.

Signed, dated and inscribed on the counter-enamel in red paint: Maurice Pr Palatine / 4th Son of the / King and Queen of Bohemia / Simpson 1845.