Franz Seraph Stirnbrand (1788-1882) was born in Linz, Austria. He went to work in Frankfurt in 1813, where he copied old master portraits. In 1820 he went to Belgium, Paris, and then to Luxembourg, and from there to Carlsruhe where he remained for four years. From 1824-5 he lived in Rome. Subsequently he went to Ludwigsburg, where he painted the sitter in this portrait. In 1830 he successfully established himself as a portrait painter in Stuttgart in Württemberg.

Princess Charlotte was the eldest daughter of George III; she married Frederick I of Württemberg in 1797, he succeeded his father as Duke in that year and was made King of Württemberg by Napoleon in 1805; he died in 1816. There are several portraits of the Queen of Württemberg by Stirnbrand in the Royal Collection, all during her widowhood and all apparently based on the same drawing of her face: RCIN 401387, 402477, 403909, 608609. In this example she appears half-length, dressed in black with a white lace cap and a miniature of her late husband suspended from a double strand of pearls about her neck. She sits in an armchair, and holds one end of the satin ribbon around her waist.