Leopold had been married to the prospective heir to the British throne Princess Charlotte of Wales from 1816 until her death in childbirth the following year.

He shows Leopold, then a widower and prominent figure in British society, in the robes of the Order of the Garter and holding a field marshal's baton.

In 1841 Leopold, now King of Belgium, presented the painting to his nephew Prince Albert who was married to the young Queen Victoria.

In this it differed from most of the other portraits in the Chamber which were specifically commissioned from Lawrence by the Prince Regent, to depict senior members of the Allied coalition that defeated Napoleon between 1813 and 1815.

[2] Leopold had himself served as a colonel of cavalry in the Imperial Russian Army[3] which was why Albert and Victoria chose to place it in the Waterloo Chamber.