Lawrence was the most fashionable and also the greatest portraitist of his generation. He was made Principal Painter to George III in 1792 after Reynolds’s death, and received occasional commissions; however it was only after 1814 that George IV began to employ him in earnest. The sitter for this portrait was the exact contemporary of Queen Victoria who succeeded to the throne of Hanover, because Salic Law forbade a woman to inherit that title. The two thrones (Britain and Hanover) separated upon the death of William IV in 1837; Queen Victoria inherited the British crown as the offspring of the Edward, Duke of Kent (1767-1820), the eldest son of King George III to have surviving issue; Ernest, Duke of Cumberland (1771-1851) inherited the Hanoverian throne as the most direct male heir (none of his elder brothers having sons or being alive themselves). The sitter for this portrait is Ernest’s son, who succeeded his father in 1851, though his reign was cut short by the Prussian annexation of Hanover in 1866. The sitter was brought up in Germany until the family came to England in 1828, initially staying at Windsor Castle with the sitter's uncle, George IV, who commissioned this portrait in that year. The nine-year-old Prince is here shown wearing a close-fitting blue braided jacket with the star of the Golden Lion of Hesse-Cassel; his right arm is extended and he rests his cap on a bank while holding a whip against his left hip; there is an evocation of Windsor Castle in the background.