Oval head and shoulders miniature in watercolour on vellum, with gum arabic. It is in a slightly damaged brass suspension locket but the inscribed backplate appears to be silver-gilt. The sitter is a young man turned to his left with a plain white neckcloth and only his right shoulder visible, showing he is in armour, and he almost fully fills the image space. His face is turned out towards the viewer and he has long and rather roughly cut brown hair and blue eyes. The backplate is engraved: 'Honble Colonel Fredk De La Penotiere who married Bridget daughter of the Honble Dr John Feilding'. Frederick's dress in this miniature suggests a date of about 1700, or two or three years either side at most. The backplate and inscription, and probably the frame, are likely to be later. The item has a black leather case.

Frederick de la Penotiere was the great-grandfather of Captain John Richards Lapenotiere (see BHC2829), best known for his role, when lieutenant commanding the schooner 'Pickle', in bringing the news of Nelson's victory at Trafalgar home in 1805. According to Lapenotiere's entry in Marshall's 'Naval Biography', Frederick was the son of a French nobleman. The family were Huguenots and he reportedly came to England with William of Orange (King William III) in 1688, though possibly with relatives since he must have been very young. Dalton's 'English Army Lists and Commission Registers' (vol III, p. 311) shows that by order issued at Ninove, Belgium, on 14 September 1693, he was appointed Ensign to Captain Luke in Prince George of Denmark's Regiment of Foot, becoming a Captain in Col. Thomas Meredith's (Irish) Regiment of Foot from 13 February 1702. At that time (see vol 4. p. 282) there was also a Lieutenant H. de la Penotiere in Meredith's regiment, though out of it by 1708. Frederick rose to Brevet Lt-Colonel on 11 January 1712 and a month later, on 18 February, was appointed Major in the Royal Irish Regiment of Foot. This may have been his final substantive rank and was also a shift of regiment, since Meredith's later became the 37th (North Hampshire) Foot. Other statements that he fought under Marlborough and received a bounty for service at Blenheim require corroboration (not least since Dalton generally specifies those who did so, but does not include him). His wife Bridget was eldest daughter of Dr John Feilding (d.1697), himself the fifth and youngest son of George Feilding (c. 1614-1666), who was created 1st Earl of Desmond in 1628. Dr Feilding was a Fellow at Queen's College, Cambridge, later Prebendary of Salisbury, chaplain to William III, and also grandfather through his eldest son (also John) of the novelist Henry Fielding, by which time the 'Feilding' spelling seems to have remained mainly with the aristocratic title.