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 Victoire was the daughter of Duke Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg. Her cousin, Queen Victoria, was delighted by the marriage in 1840 between her 'much-beloved Vecto' and the Duc de Nemours, and was devastated by Victoire's early death after the birth of her second daughter. The cousins had been 'just like sisters'. The painting is a three-quarter-length autograph copy of Winterhalter's full-length portrait of Princess Victoire in the Musée National du Château de Versailles.

Signed and dated: fr Winterhalter. Paris. / 1840. Inscribed on the back with the names of the artist and sitter and the date, …1840 / Copy.