Winterhalter was born in the Black Forest where he was encouraged to draw at school. In 1818 he went to Freiburg to study under Karl Ludwig Schüler and then moved to Munich in 1823, where he attended the Academy and studied under Josef Stieler, a fashionable portrait painter. Winterhalter was first brought to the attention of Queen Victoria by the Queen of the Belgians and subsequently painted numerous portraits at the English court from 1842 till his death. Emily (1834-84) was the daughter of Lieutenant-General Sir George Cathcart. She was Maid of Honour 1855-80, Extra Woman of the Bedchamber 1880-1 and Woman of the Bedchamber 1891-1901. Queen Victoria noted in her Journal in 1856 that she was ‘a pretty girl with regular features & dark eyes. She is exceptionally shy having been out nowhere in her life before’. Signed and dated: F Winterhalter / 1856.