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.

King Louis-Philippe was the son of Philippe Égalité, Duc d'Orléans, and had served in the revolutionary army. During the French Revolution of 1830 the sitter was offered the post of Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom and is depicted here in the uniform of that rank. He also wears the ribbons and stars of the Garter and the Legion of Honour. Queen Victoria recorded seeing the portrait being unpacked on 24 January 1846. She was impressed by the likeness and the execution and wrote to King Leopold 'wonderfully like & admirably painted it stands…just as the King does'.

At the time of his visit, his daughter, the Queen of the Belgians, described him to Queen Victoria as 'one of the beings most easy to please, satisfy, and to accommodate. His eventful life has used him to everything'. A good-natured exterior concealed a passion for power; and a complex about his usurpation of the throne of the legitimate Bourbons made him anxious to take his place among the great royal families, particularly the British. When the July Monarchy collapsed, he was assisted by the British authorities to flee to England where he took refuge with his family at Claremont House in Surrey which had been purchased for the Princess Charlotte and her husband Prince Leopold, later King of the Belgians.

Signed and dated: 'F Winterhalter. / 1845.'