Princess Alice sat for Moira in January 1860, when Queen Victoria wrote to the Princess Royal: 'Moira is painting [a head] of Alice wh. will also be very pretty. She is much admired for her really beautiful figure, & extreme gracefulness & ladylikeness' (RA VIC/U 32, 11 January 1860). Although this miniature, and another in the Royal Collection (421039) clearly derive from the same sitting, the variation in pose is attributable to the intervention of Prince Albert. Queen Victoria wrote to the Princess Royal on 15 February 1860: 'The [miniature] he did of Alice is also most beautifully painted & very like but Papa dislikes the attitude & thinks it unfavourable to Alice so she is going to be painted over again by him, – a little larger –' (RA VIC/U 32, 15 February 1860). This version, the superior of the two, was praised by the Prince Consort later that year: 'The Exhibition of the Royal Academy is very good this year,' he wrote to his eldest daughter, 'Moira has painted a very good miniature of Alice, half-length, in a white ball dress, en face' (RA VIC/Y 190/66, 9 May 1860).