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. Prince Albert is dressed in Field-Marshal’s uniform, wearing the ribbon and star of the Garter and the badge of the Golden Fleece. The landscape behind originally included a glimpse of a building on the extreme right. There are traces of alteration in the Prince’s left hip and the position of his right arm. This painting was apparently begun as a copy of the Prince’s portrait in Garter robes completed in 1843. The Queen noted in her Journal in January 1845 that ‘the full length copies of the pictures in the Robes…have been altered to evening dress & uniform’.