This portrait is painted in enamel on metal. The advantage of enamel over traditional miniature painting (watercolour painted on vellum or, from about 1700, on ivory) is that it does not fade when exposed to light. The process of painting with enamels is, however, less free than the miniature technique and is fraught with danger. The first colours to be laid on the metal support have to be those needing the highest temperature when firing. More colour is added and the enamel refired, the process ending with the colours needing the lowest temperature. Such labour meant that it was an expensive option.

Enamel was first practised in England in the 1630s by the Swiss goldsmith Jean Petitot at the court of Charles I. It was reintroduced around 1680 by a Swede, Charles Boit, and achieved wide popularity with the work of Christian Friedrich Zincke of Germany, both of whom were goldsmiths by training.

This work by Abraham Seaman (or Seeman) is signed with initials and dated 1725. This was about the time that Zincke had come to dominate the London market for small portraiture. Seaman was probably related to Isaac Seaman, Noah Seaman, and Enoch Seaman. Little is know about the Seaman family other than that they painted portraits in a variety of media in the early part of the 18th century in England. The fashion for enamel would have made it commercially astute for a portraitist such as Abraham Seaman to learn this art and offer it to clients.