William Frederick (1776–1834), 2nd Duke of Gloucester

George Romney's 1790 portrait of William Frederick, later 2nd Duke of Gloucester, painted when the subject was around fourteen, is one of several portraits the artist made of royal and noble youths during his peak London years. The young Duke was the son of William Henry, Duke of Gloucester, George III's brother, making him part of the extended royal family's secondary tier. Romney had built a practice that encompassed both grand aristocratic commissions and more intimate professional likenesses, and portraits of noble youth occupied a distinct niche — they required the painter to suggest future promise alongside present reality. The portrait is now held at Trinity College, Cambridge, where William Frederick would later serve as Chancellor. This earlier likeness, made when the subject was still a teenager, provides an interesting contrast to John Opie's 1804 portrait of the same man as a mature adult. Together the two works document a life across time — one of portraiture's fundamental capacities.

Romney adapts his mature handling to the requirements of a youthful subject: the brushwork is lighter and the overall palette warmer than in his portraits of older male sitters. The face is treated with careful attention to the particular physiognomy of adolescence — the unformed quality of features still in transition. The composition suggests future status without the formal weight of a fully adult portrait.