The 'Royal Caroline' was built in 1749 by Joshua Allin at Deptford and was an adapted sixth-rate. She replaced the 'Carolina' as the principal royal yacht. In 1761 she was sumptuously fitted out to collect the Queen Consort to be, Princess Charlotte, from Kiel, and her name was changed to the 'Royal Charlotte'. This broadside-view ship portrait from off the starboard bow, shows the ship in full sail flying the red and blue ensign and the common pendant.

John Cleveley came from an English family of painters. He was born in Southwark, London and did not become a professional painter until the late 1740s. He lived and eventually died in Deptford, London, where he worked as a shipwright in the Royal Dockyard, becoming a part-time painter in adult life, and frequently made ships in Deptford yard the subject in his paintings. It is likely that as he grew older his position as a a shipwright/carpenter became more a sinecure. His work combined depictions of people with topographical accuracy and architectural detail. He was an early exhibiter at the Free Society of Artists in London, and two of his three sons, John Cleveley the Younger and his twin brother, Robert Cleveley also became painters after working in Deptford's Royal Dockyard. The painting has been signed and dated by the artist in the lower-left sea 'Royal Caroline Yacht'. J Cleveley 1750'.