William Charles Bell trained as an enamel painter in Geneva before securing his first royal commission in March 1850. From then onwards, he was employed constantly by Queen Victoria for almost 50 years, painting enamel miniatures, often copied after Franz Xaver Winterhalter's oil portraits, for her own collection and for distribution as gifts. His enamels were usually smaller than those by Henry Pierce Bone, William Essex or John Simpson, whose services she had previously employed, and many were set into items of jewellery, particularly Maid of Honour brooches. Queen Victoria's last payment to Bell, in July 1899, was for '6 Miniatures on Gold for Maid of Honour brooches'. Owing to his advanced years, the Queen then gave him no further work but awarded him an annual pension of £20.

Bell's enamel is a reduced head and shoulders copy after Ross's bust-length miniature of Princess Louise painted shortly before her marriage in 1856 (420417). Queen Victoria wrote in her Journal at the time Ross's miniature was painted: 'Louise is much grown & has a sweet charming ex-pression, & pretty figure' (Journal, 10 July 1856).

Louise, Princess of Prussia, only daughter of William I, King of Prussia and (from 1871) Emperor of Germany, and Augusta, daughter of Charles Frederick, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, married, on 20 September 1856, Frederick I, Grand Duke of Baden. She had two sons and a daughter, Victoria, who became Queen of Sweden as consort to Gustav V.

Signed, dated and inscribed on the counter-enamel in black paint: Louise of Prussia / grand duchess / of Baden / b n 1833. [sic] / Bell after Sir W m Ross / 1856.