Winterhalter was born in the Black Forest where he was encouraged to draw at school. In 1818 he went to Freiburg to study under Karl Ludwig Schüler and then moved to Munich in 1823, where he attended the Academy and studied under Josef Stieler, a fashionable portrait painter. Winterhalter was first brought to the attention of Queen Victoria by the Queen of the Belgians and subsequently painted numerous portraits at the English court from 1842 till his death. Frances (1814-85) was the daughter of the 3rd Earl of Roden and sister-in-law of Frances, Lady Jocelyn, whose portrait is also in the Royal Collection (RCIN 404908). In 1833 she became the fourth wife of Charles Noel, Lord Barham, later 1st Earl of Gainsborough. She was a Lady of the Bedchamber from 1837-72. Queen Victoria described her in 1839 as ‘almost the best of all my Ladies…so sensible, kind, and merry’. Signed and dated: F Winterhalter / 1851. Inscribed on the back with the names of the artist and sitter and the date, 1851.