This miniature, in its original gilt locket, is based on an oil portrait of George I by Sir Godfrey Kneller which the King gave to his half-sister, Sophia Charlotte von Kielmansegg, at the time of his coronation in 1714. The oil portrait was probably painted during the weeks between his arrival and the coronation ceremony. Miniatures such as this were often set in lockets so that they could be hung from a chain or ribbon and worn round the neck. The reverse of the locket is engraved with the royal monogram GR beneath a crown.

Bernard Lens (1682-1740) was born in London, into a family of artists and is usually known as Bernard Lens III. He was drawing master to Princesses Mary and Louisa, two of the daughters of George II and Queen Caroline. Lens was the first artist in England to popularise the practice of painting miniatures on ivory rather than vellum and he revived the seventeenth-century tradition of making limned copies in watercolour on vellum or ivory of Old Master paintings.

Text adapted from The First Georgians: Art and Monarchy 1714-1760, London, 2014.