Another copy of the same portrait, dated 1623 on the panel, is at Erddig, Wrexham.² In both the other versions the subject is depicted as a half-length portrait, while the Doddington version depicts only the head.

Prince Frederick Henry (1614–1629) was the eldest son of Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of James I, and Frederick V, Elector Palatine; which accounts for the confusion over the identity of the sitter. In the present portrait, Frederick Henry is aged nine years old. In the winter of 1619–20 his parents ruled briefly over Bohemia, which gave rise to the soubriquets the ‘Winter King’ and ‘Winter Queen’. Frederick Henry did not succeed his father as elector, as he was drowned off the coast of Haarlem, in the Ijssel Sea, aged fifteen, on 17 January 1629.

Jan van Ravesteyn (c.1572–1657) was born and died in The Hague, where he was painter to the Dutch court and member of the Guild of St Luke. A successful artist, he painted a number of portraits of the Royal Family of Orange, members of the city government and the civic guard. Sir Anthony van Dyck drew van Ravesteyn’s portrait in the late 1620s or early 1630s when working in The Hague for Elector Frederick Henry (Albertina, Vienna). It is not known when the present portrait after van Ravesteyn was acquired, although it may have been purchased by a member of the Hussey family, who were staunch Royalists.