George greatly admired the writing of Walter Scott and in 1815 invited him to dinner at Carlton House. He was ‘enchanted by Scott, as Scott with him’. Scott shared George’s love of historical ceremony and helped choreograph the King’s magnificent visit to Edinburgh in 1822, incorporating many long-forgotten traditions. Their mutual enjoyment of such spectacle is clear from Scott’s description of George IV’s coronation: ‘those who witnessed it have seen a scene calculated to raise the country in their opinion and to throw into the shade all scenes of similar magnificence from the Field of the Cloth of Gold down to the present day’.

Commissioned in 1820