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 source is described in an inventory of 1877 inventory as Gerothwohl and Tanner. Sigismund Gerothwohl (1808 – 1902), daguerreotypist of Frankfurt, established a photographic studio in association with the calotypist E. Tanner from 1845, and from 1855 was operating in Paris.

Victor Emmanuel II, King of Sardinia, later King of Italy, elder son of Carlo Alberto, King of Sardinia, and Maria Theresa, daughter of Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany, succeeded his father to the throne of Sardinia and was later (1861) proclaimed King of Italy. On receiving news of his death, Queen Victoria wrote: 'He was a strange, wild man & to a certain extent lawless in his passions (for women especially) but a brave gallant soldier with a warm heart[,] honest, & great energy & power'.

Signed, dated and inscribed on the counter-enamel in black paint: Victor Emmanuel II / King of Sardinia / Bell after a / Photograph by Serothwohl [sic] & Bonner / 1856