A watercolour showing Queen Victoria and the Emperor Napoleon III seated at the centre of a large table in a luncheon room at the Crystal Palace in Sydenham, with Prince Albert and the Empress Eugenie sat opposite them. Signed and dated at bottom right: "L. Haghe. 1855"; the same overwritten (in another hand?).

In September 1854 Prince Albert visited the military camp at Boulogne (see, for example, RCIN 920050) at the invitation of Napoleon III, who the British had allied with - along with Turkey and Sardinia - in the Crimean War against Russia. The following year, the Emperor and his wife were invited to make a State Visit to England, in part an attempt to persuade Napoleon III against carrying out a wish to travel to the Crimea to lead his army. This watercolour depicts the luncheon held for the royal and imperial party during their visit to the Crystal Palace – opened in Sydenham as a centre for leisure and entertainment - on 20 April, where they first toured the displays.

The Emperor and Empress spent 3 days at Windsor and 2 staying at Buckingham Palace in London. In addition to that depicted here, events included a State Dinner held in St George’s Hall at Windsor, the investiture of Napoleon III into the Order of the Garter (RCIN 920054), a military review and a trip to the opera in Covent Garden (RCIN 920055). Victoria and Albert then travelled to Paris in August of the same year for a reciprocal State Visit (see, for example, RCIN 920059).

Later in 1855 Paul & Dominic Colnaghi published a volume titled The Visit of their Imperial Majesties the Emperor and Empress of the French, to Her Most Gracious Majesty The Queen. This comprised lithographs after watercolours commissioned from George Housman Thomas and Louis Haghe by Victoria and Albert of scenes from the visit, and accompanying letterpress descriptions. The introduction stressed the important context to this particular royal visit, and also the “intrinsic and exclusive value” of the illustrations because of the presence, by command, of the artists at the events depicted. This luncheon scene was not reproduced in the volume.