Depicting the images of King Louis Philippe, Queen Victoria, Napoleon lll and the most of the European aristocracy with an astonishing painterly finesse, the German painter and lithographer, Franz Xaver Winterhalter, is celebrated for shaping the entire era of aristocratic imagery.

Best-known for his portraits of royalty, Winterhalter was born on April 20, 1805, in the small village of Menzenschwand, Germany's black forest, in the Electorate of Baden.