It is a depiction of the reigning British monarch William IV, who had come to the throne two years earlier.

[1][2][3] Wilkie was Principal Painter in Ordinary to the king and produced this full-length work showing William in his garter robes with St Edward's Crown beside him.

Wilkie was a great admirer of Old Masters and the presentation of the king echoes that of Hans Holbein's Portrait of Henry VIII.

It hangs in the Waterloo Chamber at Windsor Castle alongside the many paintings by Thomas Lawrence of the European leaders at the time of the defeat of Napoleon.

[5] This article about a nineteenth-century painting is a stub.