Electress Sophia, Princess Palatine, consort of Ernest Augustus, Elector of Hanover (1630-1714)

Electress Sophia (1630–1714), painted by Honthorst in 1650 and held by the National Trust, depicts the twelfth child of Frederick V and Elizabeth Stuart — the one whose descendants would eventually ascend the British throne. In 1650, Sophia was twenty, not yet married to Ernest Augustus of Hanover (that marriage came in 1658), and living in exile with her mother in The Hague. Her importance in European history would only become clear much later: the Act of Settlement of 1701 designated her as heir to the English throne, and though she died two months before Queen Anne, her son became George I of Great Britain. This early portrait by Honthorst captures Sophia before any of this — as the twentieth-year-old daughter of the Winter Queen, still defining her place in a family of extraordinary people.

A portrait of the twenty-year-old Sophia would present Honthorst with a young woman of natural intelligence and strong character. His court daylight portraiture, with its clear light and careful facial characterisation, would preserve the individuality that Sophia's own later writings confirm she possessed in abundance. Rich dress and jewellery — despite the family's reduced circumstances — would maintain the visual conventions of royal portraiture.