West’s arrival in England from Italy in 1763 occurred at a time when artists were seeking to create a distinguished national school of history painting. George III was eager to support such a goal and was also a keen supporter of the proposal to found a national academy for the teaching and display of arts: his patronage of West and the foundation of the Royal Academy in 1768 were closely intertwined. At the King’s instruction, ‘The Departure of Regulus’ (OM 1152, 405614) was shown at the first Royal Academy exhibition in 1769; he succeeded Sir Joshua Reynolds as President of the Royal Academy in 1792.

West painted around sixty pictures for George III between 1768 and 1801. From 1772 he was described in Royal Academy catalogues as ‘Historical Painter to the King’ and from 1780 he received an annual stipend from the King of £100. In the 1780s he gave drawing lessons to the Princesses and in 1791 he succeeded Richard Dalton as Surveyor of the King’s Pictures.

This portrait was commissioned for 70 guineas and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1782. The Prince is shown wearing a large hat and drawing a sword from its scabbard at his waist; a toy horse on the floor and the King's hat and sword belt on a chair to the right; a distant view of Horse Guards to the rear left.

The painting was probably made in 1782, when the prince would have been three years old, as it was exhibited at the Royal Academy that year. A number of years later (in 1797) West himself recorded the date as 1781. It is signed and dated B. West 178[?] - the last digit of the date is obscure.