A watercolour view of the island of Ailsa Craig off the west coast of Scotland; with fishing boats on the right and a rowing boat in the foreground. Signed and dated bottom left: E Hildebrandt 1848.

In August 1847 Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and their two eldest children, the Princess Royal and Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, made a tour from Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, via Wales, up the west coast of Scotland and around the Western Isles on the royal yacht before spending just under a month staying at Ardverikie shooting-lodge on the banks of Loch Laggan. The royal party arrived in Scotland on 17 August; the day before the Queen recorded in her journal seeing Ailsa Craig from the yacht 'rising nearly 900ft perpendicularly out of the sea ... It was covered with thousands & thousands of birds.'

Hildebrandt was court painter to Frederick IV, King of Prussia, and on 24 January 1848 Victoria recorded in her journal going to see 'a German painter, Hildebrand by name, who has been making very pretty sketches here for the King of Prussia' - 'here' was Windsor Castle, and there are several pencil sketches and finished watercolours in the Staaliche Museen, Berlin and the Stiftung Preußische Schlösser und Gärten Berlin-Brandenburg depicting the castle and its surrounding landscape. Kunst-Blatt, a German art periodical, published a feature, dated April 1848, on Hildebrandt prompted by his presence in England. According to the author, who had seen Hildebrandt's watercolours for Queen Victoria in his studio, she appreciated in particular the 'peculiar' light effects Hildebrandt achieved in his Windsor watercolours (sunset, rain, evening etc.) and thus commissioned the artist to paint views related to her 1847 summer tour of the south coast and Scotland for her albums. (Kunst-Blatt, 46, 21 September 1848, p. 184). A biography of the artist (F. Arndt, Eduard Hildebrandt, Der Maler Des Kosmos, 1869) published shortly after his death stated that Hildebrandt lived at Windsor Castle while carrying out his commission for Frederick IV, and taught Victoria drawing, though there is no mention of this in her journal.