A copy of the head and shoulders of Prince Augustus taken from A.E. Chalon's full-length double military portrait in watercolour of the count and his cousin, Count Alexander Mensdorff-Pouilly, dating from 1839 (451813). Augustus was perpetually compared unfavourably to his brother, Prince Ferdinand, later Ferdinand II, King Consort of Portugal. Leopold I, King of the Belgians, had written on 1 April 1836 to Princess, later Queen, Victoria: 'Prince Augustin as I call him is in intellect much behind [his brother] though very good natured; if I mistake not he will be for quiet enjoyment of the good things of this earth, eating, drinking, riding, shooting, &c., and with this however kind hearted and not selfish which I perceived in his great attachment to his elder brother' (RA VIC/Y 62/30).

Prince Augustus of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, second son of Duke Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and Maria Antonia, Princess of Kohary, married, in 1843, Clementine, youngest daughter of the French King Louis-Philippe. A major general in the Austrian army, he was forced to leave France in 1848 following the Revolution and seek refuge in London with the rest of the Orléans family, but later settled on the extensive Kohary estates in Austria and Hungary which he inherited on the death of his father in 1851.

Signed, dated and inscribed on the counter-enamel in red paint: Prince Augustus / of Saxe Cobourg / London Oct r 1840. Painted / by command of her Majesty / by Henry Pierce Bone / Enamel Painter to her / Majesty &c. From a Draw / ing by A.E. Chalon / R.A.