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.

Louise was the eldest daughter of King Louis-Philippe, the last King to rule France. She married Leopold I, King of the Belgians and Queen Victoria's uncle, in 1832. Queen Victoria wrote in her Journal that Louise was 'so kind & so good; the more one sees her the more one must love her; she is so thoroughly unselfish, – indeed she never thinks of herself' and 'the dearest friend, after my beloved Albert, I have'.

This painting is a three-quarter-length version of Winterhalter's full-length portrait of Queen Louise, of which there is a version in the Belgian Royal Collection. The bracelet on her right arm contains a miniature of her elder son. On 4 October 1841 Queen Victoria wrote to Queen Louise that her portrait was perfect but that the portrait of her uncle, Leopold (RCIN 404525) was hideous, ' it is not fit to be hung up'.

Signed and dated: Fr Winterhalter 1841 / Paris.