Following Charlotte's death there had been an urgent need to secure new heirs to the throne, and the unmarried Edward, Duke of Kent had married Victoria in 1818.

Their daughter was born in May 1819, but Kent's death from pneumonia a few months later ended the short marriage.

[citation needed] William Beechey was an experienced portraitist and member of the Royal Academy, who had painted British royalty on a number of occasions, and was paid around £265 in two installments.

In the double portrait the Duchess is wearing mourning for her late husband while young Victoria clasps a miniature depicting him.

[4] Beechey's composition shows the influence by earlier works by Joshua Reynolds, such as the 1759 depiction of Countess Spencer with her daughter, but also an awareness of the style of his fashionable contemporaries Thomas Lawrence and George Dawe.