In this major work by Robert Thorburn (1818-1885), Queen Victoria is depicted wearing a green medieval-style robe, the sapphire and diamond coronet worn on the back of her head and a lace veil; she clasps the hand of the Prince of Wales, who wears a blue Russian-style tunic. The Queen sat for Thorburn initially in late October 1844: 'After writing letters, stood to Mr. Thorburn for a sketch of a miniature he is going to paint as a pendant to that beautiful one of Albert, & after luncheon, I stood with Bertie, who is going to be painted with me' (RA QVJ: 24 October 1844). Numerous sittings followed in the succeeding months, but Thorburn made little progress. Queen Victoria wrote in November: 'Sat to Thorburn (who had wiped out the whole face, as Albert did not find it at all like) and he began the painting all afresh' (RA QVJ: 8 November 1844). The Honourable Eleanor Stanley was present at one of the later sittings and reported: 'I sat with the Queen yesterday for an hour and a half, while she was sitting to Thorburn, who has already had thirty sittings, and still asked for more, to her great horror' (E. Stanley, Twenty Years at Court from the Correspondence of the Hon. Eleanor Stanley, 1916, p. 87). By March 1845, some improvement had been noted, but it seems that the likeness of the faces remained in contention, and the miniature never quite pleased the Queen. Years later, in recommending to Sir Theodore Martin illustrations for his five-volume Life of the Prince Consort, Queen Victoria discussed this miniature and commented: 'it was not vy. like the Queen – tho' the Pce. of Wales's head is fine' (RA VIC/Y 169/101). The verisimilitude may not have been pleasing to the Queen, but the composition was undoubtedly impressive. With its strong chiaroscuro and deep tones, it showed the influence of Thorburn's '2 winters in Italy' (RA QVJ: 23 February 1844). The Queen's medieval costume was intended to counterbalance Prince Albert's appearance in armour in the pendant (421665).

The miniature was engraved and was copied a number of times in porcelain, one of these being a Berlin (KPM) porcelain copy mounted in a jewel cabinet by Elkington, Mason & Co. (1562).