A watercolour depicting Eliza Collins, the nursemaid of Princess Louise, in three-quarter-length and leaning forward, with the infant Princess on the right, holding her arm, and probably standing on a stool. Signed and dated at lower right: fWinterhalter / 1850.

Princess Louise was Queen Victoria and Prince Albert's sixth child and fourth daughter. The royal parents were eager to document their growing family, and they kept sculptors, painters and photographers busy recording the appearances and activities of each of their nine children as they grew. Victoria and Albert kept some of the watercolours they commissioned, including this one, in a sequence of family portrait albums.

Eliza, or Elizabeth, Collins married Prince Albert's valet Rudolph Löhlein in 1850. See RCIN 2910268 for a photograph of her when Mrs Löhlein. Eliza and her husband died a few months apart in 1896.

Winterhalter was the premier portraitist in the mid-nineteenth century at many of the major European courts, working for those of London, Paris, Belgium, Berlin, Vienna, Madrid and St Petersburg, amongst others. He painted over 100 portraits for Queen Victoria and her extended family; the Queen esteemed him especially for his ability to capture a likeness, and the elegance, romance and naturalism of his works.