This alluring and intimate portrait of Queen Victoria was commissioned as a 'secret picture' for her husband's 24th birthday. The gift was a success, as the queen wrote:

he thought it so like, & so beautifully painted. I felt so happy & proud to have found something that gave him so much pleasure

Queen Victoria's Journal, 26 August, 1843

The painting was hung in Prince Albert's Writing Room at Windsor and Queen Victoria later referred to it as 'my darling Albert's favourite picture' (Journal, 2 January, 1873).