Herman Quiter was the elder son of Herman Hendrik Quiter the Elder and probably his student. In 1700 he went to Rome, where he studied under Carlo Maratta. On his return to Germany he became painter to the Landgrave of Hesse, then inspector of mines in Kassel.

Frederick II, Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel (1720 – 85), was the only surviving son of William VIII of Hesse-Cassel and Dorothea Wilhelmine, daughter of Moritz, Duke of Saxe-Zeitz. He married firstly, in 1740, Princess Mary, daughter of George II, King of Great Britain and Ireland, and secondly, in 1773, Philippine, daughter of Frederick William, Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt. He succeeded his father as Landgrave in 1760. He provided military support for George II in 1745 against the Jacobite uprising in Scotland and to his nephew, George III, in the American War of Independence.

Depicted aged ten, wearing a red velvet embroidered jacket over a breastplate, his right hand resting on a plumed helmet on a table beside him. The format and pose are similar to a portrait of 1727 held by the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm; in this a dog replaces the helmet.