This miniature by Samuel Finney is a copy after a full-length oil painting by Allan Ramsey and, unfortunately, it has faded considerably over time. Finney also painted many miniatures of Queen Charlotte taken from life. He was well-established in his career when, in 1763, the new young queen from Germany decided to appoint him her ‘miniature painter’ at a salary of £50 a year.

Finney was devoted to his royal patron, and had much to say in praise of her in his still unpublished memoirs. At this time it was usual for portrait painters to have a room in which to show their pictures, and as Finney noted in his memoirs ‘people who have nothing to do, make it one of their morning amusements, to go and see these collections’. Queen Charlotte was not regarded by her new subjects as a suitably attractive wife for George III, and Finney noted a number of occasions when he had to defend the woman he found to be vivacious and kindly from insults of looking like ‘a pug’.