Knapton studied with Jonathan Richardson and visited Italy before setting himself up as a picture expert as well as portrait painter. In 1750 he worked with George Vertue on a survey of the paintings in the Royal Collection and in 1765 was made Surveyor of the King's Pictures.

This huge group portrait is dated 1751, the year in which the Prince of Wales died (on the 21 March) and his youngest child, Caroline Matilda, was born (on the 11 July); she appears here in her mother's arms. It is presumed that this was painted for the Princess of Wales, though it matches the size of paintings executed for the supper boxes of the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens (by Francis Hayman and others) and could therefore conceivably have been commissioned by Jonathan Tyers and intended for public display. It is first recorded at Kensington Palace in 1778, by which time it had been moved from its original location.

Knapton has executed the most original and perhaps only allegorical image of a constitutional monarchy. The Princess of Wales is enthroned centrally, wearing a mourning veil; she is flanked on her right by a portrait of her late husband shown standing in front of their home, the White House at Kew. Corresponding with him on the Princess's left is a statue of Britannia on a plinth upon which is carved a pair of scales in which are balanced the crown and the 'Cap of Liberty'. Beneath the scales appears a British lion holding another Cap of Liberty and resting upon documents inscribed 'Magna Charta' and 'Act of Settlement'. It would seem that the whole painting repeats the shape of the scales with the person of the hereditary prince on one side, the attributes of the State and the Constitution on the other, and the throne in the middle and is an elaborate tribute to the varied tastes and interests of the family of the late Prince of Wales and to the sactity of the Hanoverian Succession and the British Constitution.

The treatment of the family reflects the new role which this scheme assigns to them – not that of commanding but encouraging. They are shown in postures of playful and informal affection, while keenly pursuing the areas of interest which they will need to encourage a successful state: the boys learn about ships and fortifications (architecture and surveying is also suggested by the things cluttering the bottom left corner); the girls play music and frolic with the family pets.