Frederica Louisa (1751-1805) was the Queen Consort of Friedrich Wilhelm II, King of Prussia. The sitter of one of the other portraits has traditionally been held to be Princess Augusta, Duchess of Brunswick (1737-1813), the eldest child of Frederick Louis, Prince of Wales and Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha, and the sister of George III. However, as she was over fifty when the portrait was drawn, it may in fact represent her daughter Augusta Dorothea. The portrait of the unknown lady was formerly identified as Frederica, Princess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, later Queen Consort of Ernest, King of Hanover (1778-1841).

According to an inventory made by Richard Redgrave, Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures between 1857 and 1880, the pastel of Frederica Louisa was brought from Kew Palace to Buckingham Palace in 1860. The other portraits historically hung at Buckingham Palace; Augusta, Duchess of Brunswick was noted there in 1876 and the portrait of the unknown lady was recorded by Sir Lionel Cust in 1909.

Johann Heinrich Schröder was the Ducal court painter at Braunschweig between 1785 and the overthrow of the Ducal state by Napoleon in 1806. From 1792 to 1793 he visited London and in the latter year exhibited at the Royal Academy. Towards the end of his life he was the official portrait painter to the Arch Duke’s family at Karlsruhe.