The event shown here is the presentation of the 11-year-old Princess, later Queen, Victoria, at a ‘Drawing Room’ (or formal reception) at St James’s Palace on 24 February 1831. The Drawing Room was held to mark the birthday of Queen Adelaide, who stands behind the princess at the top of the stairs, but the occasion was Princess Victoria’s first court appearance, and it is the young guest, rather than the new Queen, who is the focus of the painting. Presented to Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother by Captain Michael John Wemyss of Wemyss in 1948