Prince Albert wears the uniform of the 11th Hussars with the ribbon and star of the Garter, the badge of a Grand Cross (Military) of the Order of the Bath and the badge of the Golden Fleece. He rests his hand on his sword and holds his shako which, from 1800 onwards became a common military head-dress in most armies. The building in the background is probably intended to be Windsor Castle. The Prince sat for his portrait during September and October 1840, and Queen Victoria recorded in her Journal that it would be ‘exceedingly like & good’. The portrait was probably the one exhibited by Partridge at the Royal Academy in 1841. On the Queen’s birthday, 24 May 1841, her presents included, from the Prince, ‘a picture of him by Partridge which is very like’. It was placed in her Sitting-Room at Buckingham Palace. The condition of the portrait was causing concern by 1863, when it was ‘still flowing downwards after all that has been done to it’, according to Richard Redgrave, the Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures at that time. A number of replicas and variants were made of it. Inscribed on the back of a relining canvas with the names of the artist and sitter and the date, 1841.