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 Adelaide was Queen Victoria's niece, the daughter of her half-sister, Princess Feodora. In 1852 the 16-year old Adelaide had received a proposal of marriage from Napoleon III, Emperor of France, but her parents rejected the offer. In 1856 she married Frederick VIII, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein, and they had seven children. Adelaide Island, a small glaciated island in Franz-Josef Land, was named after her by the Austro-Hungarian North Pole Expedition.

Inscribed on the back with the names of the sitter and the artist and the date, July 1853.