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.

On 2 May 1856 Queen Victoria gave 'a long sitting, for an oval half-length portrait' which required further sittings on the 3, 5, 6 and 8 May. It was finished on the 10 May and the Queen wrote in her journal of Winterhalter '[he] has done really a fine picture of me, & very like'. Originally the painting was hung above a door in the Principal Corridor at Buckingham Palace and was set into the wall decoration.

The Queen wears a magnificent brooch in which is set the thousand-year-old Koh-i-nûr diamond, which had been surrendered to her by the Maharaja Duleep Singh in 1849. Her necklace belonged to Queen Adelaide and was remade for Queen Victoria in 1853 by Garrard's.

Signed and dated: Fr. Winterhalter 1856