Given the existence of Henry Bone's squared drawing inscribed: Duchess of Kent after Beechey / 1824 in the National Portrait Gallery, London (Bone, Drawings, II/86a), there seems little reason to doubt that this is a work by Henry Bone. It is after Sir William Beechey's original of 1821, painted in all probability for Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, later Leopold I, King of the Belgians, and given to Queen Victoria in 1867 by his son, Leopold II (407169). She had already acquired Bone's copy in 1861, the year of her mother's death. The central positioning of the miniature of Edward, Duke of Kent, within the composition emphasises the heaviness of the loss that the Duchess, in mourning, and her daughter had suffered on his death in January 1820. It cannot be linked to any specific miniature now in the Royal Collection, but appears to be one of the many versions by J.P.F. Fischer of the Duke after Beechey. The discarded case lies to one side as the infant princess clasps the miniature over her mother's heart.