"This is a late work in watercolour on vellum by an artist, Pierre Signac, who was better known as one of the earliest exponents of miniature painting in enamel. He learned the art of enamel painting from Henri Toutin of Paris, and in 1647 was invited to Stockholm by Queen Christina of Sweden. He painted numerous portraits of Queen Christina and her successors Charles X Gustav and Charles XI, both in enamel and in watercolour on vellum, a technique which he learned from Alexander Cooper, the younger brother of Samuel Cooper, who also found patronage at the Swedish court. The sitter, Prince George of Denmark, was painted by Signac from life in Copenhagen in May 1668. The prime version of this portrait is in the National Museum of Finland, Helsinki (no. 9). Signac had travelled throughout the courts of Germany and to Copenhagen at the command of Queen Hedwig Eleonora of Sweden to paint portraits for her and a number of other portraits from this series were also painted in Copenhagen at this time (see for example 420682 and 420553). Prince George, second son and fifth child of Frederick III and Sophia Amalia of Denmark, married, in 1683, Anne, Queen of England. Inscribed on the back in ink over an illegible pencil inscription by a nineteenth-century hand: George Prince of Denmark married to Anne Queen of Gr. Britain born 1653 died 1708." [1]