Frank Salisbury was a highly succesful portraitist, painting five British Prime Ministers, five American Presidents, and countless members of Society. However it is perhaps his work for the Royal Family which is the most instantly recognisable and best-known. He was greatly interested in recording important national events and royal ceremonies. One of the earliest such pictures he produced was The Burial of the Unknown Warrior, now in the Palace of Westminster. The present study of the Duke of York, later King George VI, was made shortly after the ceremony for that picture, on 11 March 1921, according to Salisbury's sitters book. Several such studies of different participants were made for the picture. Its rapid chalk strokes demonstrate his virtuoso ability to capture a sitter. He went on to depict the coronation of George VI a few years later.