The face of Princess Charlotte in this enamel by Joseph Lee is loosely based upon the type by Sir George Hayter used in his miniature (420200; Royal Collection)and in his drawing in the British Museum, London (Binyon 1898 – 1907, II, p. 284, no. 4). However, in Lee's enamel, the Princess is shown in reverse and the costume is greatly at variance with that displayed in Hayter's portrait or in the much-copied type by George Dawe. Lee is likely to have produced this work immediately before or soon after the death of Princess Charlotte in childbirth in 1817. A signed version by the same artist is in the Buccleuch Collection.

Joseph Lee (1780-1859) was self-taught as an an enamellist at a late age, but made a successful career as an enamel painter, exhibiting intermittently at the RA and the SBA between 1809 and 1853 from addresses in London. He styled himself as 'enamel painter' to Princess Charlotte of Wales and later worked as 'enamel painter' to Augustus, Duke of Sussex. It may have been the gift of a small enamel of the Duke of Sussex to Queen Victoria that first made her familiar with Lee's work. She employed his services for producing enamel copies based on oil paintings between 1844 and 1850. He retired from miniature painting in his final years and died, aged seventy-nine, in Gravesend, Kent, on 26 December 1859