The sitter is Henry Frederick, eldest son of Elizabeth of Bohemia (1596-1662) and Frederick V, Elector Palatine (1596-1632). Through his mother, Henry was grandson of James I of England. He was born in 1614, a year after his parents' marriage; he was the first of their thirteen children and heir to the Palatine and also to the English throne.

Elizabeth's children were replaced in the line of the English succession with the birth of Charles I's son Charles, Prince of Wales, in 1630, but they were restored by the 1701 Act of Settlement, as a result of the so-called 'Glorious Revolution' of 1688, which overthrew the Catholic James II (1633-1701). After the death of James' second daughter, Anne (1665-1714), Elizabeth's grandson, George, Electoral Prince of Hanover, succeeded as King of Great Britain in 1714.

During his short life, Henry witnessed his parents' brief rule over Bohemia in the winter of 1619-20, and the beginning of what would become their lifelong exile in the Dutch Republic from 1622. Henry was drowned at the age of fifteen in the Ijssel Sea off the coast of Haarlem on January 17, 1629. His brother, Charles Louis (b.1617) succeeded him as Crown Prince.

The present portrait is number 27 in Abraham van der Doort's catalogue of the collections of Charles I, where it is listed as hanging above the door 'goeing to my Ladie Carliles Lodging' in the Bear Gallery, Whitehall. It is described as: 'the Picture pijntit opan de reht lijeht of the Eldest Brother of the Princ Elector Pallatine done to the Shouldrs In a wodden frame upon a board', though it does not appear in this location in the 1649 Commonwealth Sale.

An engraving by Willem Jacobsz Delff of 'Fridericus Henricus Comes Palatinus Rheni', of which prints exist in the Royal Collection (RCIN 611123) and the National Portrait Gallery (NPG D26457), closely resembles this painting in composition, despite some small differences in the character of the costume. This engraving states that the engraving was after a painting by 'Michaele Joh. Miereveldis' and the attribution of the present portrait to Michiel Jansz. van Mierevelt (1567-1641) seems reasonable, given its period, style, and the sitter's presence with his family in The Hague from the age of eight until his death. However, van der Doort annotates the description of no. 27 with ' Done at Amsterdam by Bowdingham', which throws this attribution into question.

The Royal Collection holds a painting of The Four Eldest Children of the King and Queen of Bohemia (RCIN 404971) by Gerrit van Honthorst, which was painted two years after the death of Henry Frederick. This painting depicts the four remaining eldest children: Princess Elizabeth (1619-1680) and Princes Rupert (1610-1682), Maurice (1620-1654) and Charles-Louis (1617-1680).