Essex's copy is taken from Franz Xaver Winterhalter’s full-length portrait of the Grand Duchess painted in 1848 as a birthday present for her sister, the Duchess of Kent, from Queen Victoria (404524). The original portrait shows her standing in a landscape probably intended to represent Boissière near Geneva, where she lived a retired life following her divorce in 1820 from the Grand Duke Constantine of Russia.

Princess Juliane of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, third daughter of Francis Antony, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and Augusta, daughter of Henry XXIV, Count of Reuss-Ebersdorff, married, in 1796, the Grand Duke Constantine of Russia, second son of Emperor Paul I of Russia. She took the name Anna Feodorovna on her marriage, which was dissolved in 1820, and died childless in 1860.

Signed, dated and inscribed on the counter-enamel in black paint: Her S.H. the Grand / Duchess Anne of / Russia. Born Princess of Saxe / Coburg Saalfeld. / Painted by W. Essex / Enamel painter to Her Majesty / & H.R.H. Prince Albert / after Winterhalter / 1850