Nine days later, Mary successfully claimed the throne and Jane was imprisoned in the Tower of London on charges of high treason, along with her husband, Lord Guildford Dudley.

[6] As a result, Cynthia Zarin of The New Yorker writes, "the blank where [Jane's] face should be has made it that much easier for succeeding generations to imprint their political and personal fantasies on her".

[b][9] The sitter is described by art critic Charlotte Higgins as a slender and "demure, pious young woman", and has been tentatively identified as Lady Jane Grey.

[3] The subject wears an opulent red gown with turned-back trumpet sleeves and a partlet with standing collar; the latter is embroidered with a fleur-de-lis pattern, the heraldic emblem of French royalty.

She wears numerous pieces of jewellery, including a necklace finished with medallions and pearls; these indicate a person of high social and economic status, which is reinforced by the silk and velvet of her gown.

[12] The independent historian J. Stephan Edwards writes, however, that the fleur-de-lis give him pause as, before June 1553, Jane "would have had no right to the French heraldic emblems" as she was not yet an heir to the throne.

[5] Tarnya Cooper of the National Portrait Gallery gave less sharp criticism, stating "it's a paint-by-number, labored copy",[14] and "its value is as a historical document rather than a work of art".

[13] Another strikingly similar portrait, depicting a woman also credited as Jane – although the costume differs slightly – was once owned by Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton, but is now in an undisclosed private collection.

Christopher Foley traced this painting back to Francis Rodes of Barlborough Hall;[16] the family owned a collection of portraits of Protestant heroes.

[19] Owing to the painting's crudeness, Foley suggests that it was hurriedly completed for Jane's family from an original that "had to be destroyed because it would have been too dangerous to own once Mary became queen".

However, owing to "the ages and marital status of the other candidates", Lady Jane Grey was the only viable choice; the others were too young, already married and using a different surname, or had lost their title.

[13] After the discovery, Libby Sheldon of University College London conducted several tests to verify the painting's age, including spectroscopy and laser microscopy.

[23] The acquisition was criticised by Starkey, who said, "if the National Portrait Gallery has public money to burn, then so be it ... [the decision] depends on mere hearsay and tradition, and it is not good enough".

"[13] Privately Starkey acted on behalf of the Philip Mould Gallery and examined another portrait thought to be Jane, held by the Yale Center for British Art.

[24] After the March 2007 exhibition Lost Faces, when the miniature was displayed after a recent resurgence of interest in Jane, Foley published a lengthy letter challenging Starkey's judgement.

Beginning in early 2013, the painting was hung in Room 2 of the gallery's regional outpost at Montacute House in Somerset, part of an exhibition of Tudor-era portraits.