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.

Leopold I was Queen Victoria's beloved uncle. He commissioned Winterhalter to paint this portrait of himself to give to his niece as a birthday present. He wears the uniform of a Colonel in the Belgian Cuirassiers, with the ribbon and star of the Garter and that of the Order of Leopold, and badges of the Fleece and Iron Cross. In a letter to the Queen, Leopold is amused by how the artist has given him an air of Napoleon which he trusts would be modified. The Queen responded by proclaiming how precious the painting was to 'your child'. The third surviving son of Franz Friedrich Anton, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld; uncle of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, he married Princess Charlotte in 1816 although she was to die only one year later. In 1830 he accepted the invitation from the newly independent Belgians to be their king and in 1832 married Louise-Marie of France, the eldest daughter of King Louis Philippe.