Stroehling’s work in the Royal Collection allows us to trace a rare example of continuity between the masters of the Dutch Golden Age and those of the early nineteenth century. Stroehling was brought up in Dusseldorf where a magnificent collection of the polished, classicising and elegant works (often on copper) by artists such as Adriaen van der Werff (1659-1722) had been formed by Johann Wilhelm II, Elector Palatine (1658-1716). Stroehling worked all over Europe but spend much of the first two decades of the nineteenth century in London; between 1810 and 1820 he was even styled ‘Historical Painter to the Prince of Wales’. Stroehling’s work elsewhere tended to be life-sized portraiture, but the Royal Collection has an important group of small-scale portraits on copper, executed with fine detail and a glossy finish; Joseph Farington perceptively referred to them as ‘painted in a Vanderwerfe manner’. Stroehling’s price for these ‘Cabinet Pictures’ was 200 guineas each, an impressive sum in the period even for a life-sized work. This work stands aside from the main body of Stroehlings in the Royal Collection in being on canvas; it does not appear either to be part of a narrative group but rather a stand-alone celebration of a famous hero of the era. It was probably painted during the sitter's time in London in 1809 after serving in Spain. The painting is recorded in march 1814, so it was certainly executed some time before the sitter lost his leg at the Battle of Waterloo. The Earl is mounted on a white charger with a tiger-skin saddle cloth, riding to the left in a rocky landscape; wearing the uniform of a Colonel of the 7th Light Dragoons (Hussars) with the Peninsula Medal; cavalry action in the background.