Copied by Guglielmo Faija from the double portrait by Franz Xaver Winterhalter of the Prince of Wales, on the right, with his brother, Prince Alfred, on the left, in Highland dress, dating from 1849 (420279; Royal Collection). The miniature is inscribed on the reverse in ink in Queen Victoria's own hand with the sitter's names and with the date '1850' corrected in pencil to 1849.

Guglielmo Faija, born in Palermo, Sicily, and trained in Paris, established a successful practice in London as a miniaturist from 1838 onwards. This relatively early royal commission (his first work for Queen Victoria dates from 1845) demonstrates his accomplishment at copying in miniature large-scale oil portraits, a talent which Queen Victoria praised in a letter to the Duchess of Sutherland in 1857: 'Fahia [sic] would be the best person to copy your picture of Lord Ellesmere, he copies continually for dear Mama Sir William Rosses [sic] miniatures, and makes beautiful miniatures from large pictures. I think he paints particularly well'.