A watercolour view of Victoria and Albert's bedroom at Windsor Castle. Dated on original mount: 1847.

On 31 March 1847, Queen Victoria wrote in her journal that they had looked at a number of newly rearranged rooms within the private apartments at Windsor: ‘our bedroom … looks very handsome, papered with crimson & gold, & all the portraits, from our former bedroom, are hung up here again.’ The portraits replicated in this watercolour are all of members of Victoria and Albert's shared Coburg family. In 1844 Prince Albert commissioned William Corden the Younger to travel to Coburg to copy a set of family portraits - these included ones of Victoria and Albert's aunts Princess Antoinette of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (RCIN 406491, on the far right in the watercolour), Princess Sophia of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (RCIN 406490, wearing the turban in the portrait hanging above the door), and Victoria and Albert's grandmother Augusta, Duchess of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (RCIN 406489). The two portraits hanging on the lower level of the facing wall depict Albert's parents, Ernest I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (RCIN 407125), and Duchess Louise (RCIN 407126) - these copies were made by Herbert Luther Smith, also in 1844. Not shown in the watercolour is the corresponding group of portraits that hung on the fourth wall of the room, which were of Queen Victoria's parents the Duke and Duchess of Kent (RCINs 407688 and 407127), and Leopold I (RCIN 406410), the Queen's favourite uncle, and his first wife Princess Charlotte, daughter of George IV (RCIN 400164).

Nash appears to have first worked for Victoria and Albert in 1844, when he was commissioned to record events from the visits of, first, the Emperor of Russia and then Louis-Philippe, King of the French. In 1848 Nash published a volume titled Views of the Interior and Exterior of Windsor Castle, which he dedicated to the Queen. The introduction states: "On the various occasions when the Continental Sovereigns were entertained by Her Majesty at Windsor Castle, Mr Nash had the honour of receiving Her Majesty's commands to make Drawings of the scenes illustrative of the state and ceremony which distinguish the Royal hospitality". As well as such narrative scenes (see, for example, RCIN 919791), Nash's publication also included illustrations of rooms and spaces within the Castle which must have been made with Victoria and Albert's permission - though unsurprisingly, this particular watercolour was not included. A complete set of the watercolours relating to the publication - 26 in total - is in the collection of Anglesey Abbey (National Trust).

This watercolour was originally mounted in View Album IV. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert compiled nine View Albums during their marriage. These albums contained watercolours and drawings documenting their life together and were arranged in chronological order. The albums were dismantled in the early twentieth century and rebound in new volumes both in a different arrangement and with additional items, but a written record of their original contents and arrangement still exists.