The artist William Prewett, a pupil of C.F. Zincke working chiefly in enamel c.1735 – 50, cannot be the author of this work on ivory of c.1780 – 90. Several miniaturists working at this period might have painted this work: W.P. (fl. 1789); the Irishman William Palmer (1763 – 90); and William Pether (?1738 – 1821). The latter is known to have signed with conjoined initials and is the most likely contender. The identification of the sitter as the portrait painter Nathaniel Dance, based on the initials engraved on the reverse of the miniature, is also speculative. Nathaniel Dance only assumed the name Holland by royal licence in 1800, taking it from a relative of his wife whom he had married in 1783, so it would not have formed part of a monogram in a setting of a period with the miniature. The eyes of the sitter, blue in this miniature, do not conform to the dark-brown eyes shown in Dance's self-portrait in oils of c.1773 (National Portrait Gallery, London: no. 3626), nor do his features closely resemble those of Dance's in 1764 as recorded in a chalk drawing by Angelica Kauffman (Victoria and Albert Museum, London).

Signed with initials lower right: W.P.