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.

Princess Feodora was Queen Victoria's half-sister from their mother's first marriage. She and her brother Charles were taken to London after his mother's second marriage to Edward, Duke of Kent. In 1828, she returned to the continent to marry Ernest, Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg. She and Queen Victoria were devoted to each other and corresponded throughout their lives. At the last sitting for this portrait the Queen noted in her journal: "the picture is admirable" (Queen Victoria's Journal, 12th June 1855).

Signed and dated: Fr Winterhalter / 1855. Inscribed on the back with the names of the artist and sitter and the date, June 1855.