Prince William of Prussia (1859-1941), later William II, Emperor of Germany, eldest son of Frederick III, Emperor of Germany, and Victoria, Princess Royal, eldest daughter of Queen Victoria, succeeded his father as Emperor of Germany in 1888, to become the leading political figure in Europe after the resignation of Otto von Bismarck. He abdicated after the end of the First World War, living out the remaining twenty three years of his life at Huis Doorn in the Netherlands. His first marriage, in 1881, was to Augusta Victoria, eldest daughter of Frederick, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein, with whom he had six sons and a daughter. His second marriage was to Hermine, daughter of Prince Henry XXII Reuss, in 1922.

Minna Pfüller (1824-1907) executed a portrait of the sitter's father, Crown Prince Friedrich, his great uncle Friedrich William IV (RCIN 400786), as well as a copy after a portrait of the sitter's paternal grandmother, Empress Augusta (RCIN 400780). This portrait is a copy of one by Friedrich Kaulbach painted in January 1869. The Royal Collection has several miniature portraits of Prince William as a child (see RCIN 421558). The Prince here appears half-length, wearing a military tunic with silver epaulettes, red cuffs and a silver and red collar; he wears the sash and star of the Order of the Black Eagle of Prussia and the collar of the House Order of Hohenzollern.