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. Queen Victoria recorded in her Journal for 2 July 1853 that Franz Xaver Winterhalter had begun to paint the Princess, who was one of the Sponsors at the christening of Victoria’s son, Prince Leopold. She was the younger daughter of Karl Friedrich, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach. In 1829 she married Prince William of Prussia, the future German Emperor. During the visit of the Prince and Princess to London for the opening of the Great Exhibition in 1851, the Princess became a close friend of Queen Victoria, who described their friendship as a ‘rare blessing’. Princess Augusta is wearing a ball gown with the ribbon of the Order of the Red Eagle of Prussia, which may have been what she wore at the christening. Signed and dated: F Winterhalter / 1853. Inscribed on the back with the names of the artist and sitter and the date, 1853.