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 is in evening dress, with the ribbon and star of the Garter, holding the hand of her eldest son, Albert Edward, Prince of Wales. He is dressed in a loose Russian blouse. This painting, together with a portrait of Prince Albert, now in the Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight, was a present from the Queen to Sir Robert Peel with whom she had stayed at Drayton Manor in 1843. Peel was British prime minister twice and was responsible for important social reforms during his period in government. Peel hoped that the sitters would be depicted in the simple clothes that they had worn when he had been admitted to their ‘private society’. He was also keen that the Prince of Wales should be included in the Queen’s portrait. The Prince had been born soon after Peel entered the Queen’s service and had always been regarded by Peel ‘with even a warmer interest than that which under any circumstances the feelings of loyalty and devotion to your Majesty would have inspired’. The Queen was pleased with both pictures and described Albert’s as ‘quite Winterhalter’s “chef d’œvre”, & is the best likeness ever done of my beloved one’. Prince Albert had a copy made of his portrait, ‘so like the dear original’, which he gave to the Queen. Signed and dated: F Winterhalter / 1846.