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. Queen Victoria is depicted dressed in her wedding wreath of orange blossom flowers and her wedding veil, with the small collar of the Garter. She also wears the brooch Prince Albert gave her on their wedding day and the ear-rings and necklace made from the Turkish diamonds given to her by the Sultan Mahmúd II in 1838. She noted in her Journal that the painting was ‘a surprise for my beloved Albert, for 10th of Feb’. It was placed in the Prince’s Dressing Room at Windsor. Signed and dated: Fr Winterhalter. Inscribed on the back with the names of the sitter and artist and the date, 1847, with the date of the Queen’s marriage, 10 February 1840.