To create this huge gallery of likenesses the Queen relied particularly on German artists. Before her marriage the young Queen had had unfortunate experience with the principal official British painters. She was delightfully depicted in informal groups by such painters as Grant or Leslie, but she considered the large official portraits by Shee and Wilkie disasters. The most important commissions in the early years of her reign were given to George Hayter, who worked tirelessly, and with considerable competence, for her, particularly in three very large groups: her Coronation, her wedding and the Christening of the Prince of Wales on 25 January 1842. In 1843, Hayter had to travel to Potsdam to secure a likeness, for insertion in the last of these, of the King of Prussia and he later painted a little sketch of the fete at Sanssouci which he had attended. By now the Queen, and no doubt Prince Albert as well, had become weary of Hayter. As late as 1852 he was hoping to be commissioned to paint portraits of the Queen and Prince for the Guildhall at Windsor. To his chagrin he learned that the Town Hall had received copies of the full-lengths Winterhalter had painted in 1843. Although she had been aware since the earliest days of her reign of concern that she and the Prince might be prejudiced in favour of foreign artists, she never, for different reasons, gave her patronage to the principal London portrait painters, whom she apparently regarded with invincible distrust. Her almost total disregard of national talent in the field of portraiture inevitably attracted criticism; so much so that after her death it was made plain to her successor that he must not employ foreign artists on the most important royal commissions. Practical reasons justified the Queen's prejudices. A London painter would have to fit a royal commission into a busy schedule and negotiations over sittings and payments might become fractious. A foreign painter, on the other hand, could be summoned over for a given period to carry out carefully specified commissions for agreed sums and could give the Queen, while he was in London, his individual attention. He would be provided with living quarters and a painting room and could get on with the job. He would, moreover, find himself in congenial company. While Winterhalter was painting the Queen in 1842 they could hear the band rehearsing a beautiful new symphony by Mendelssohn in a nearby room; and one of the Germans employed in the Queen's stables, writing to Winterhalter in 1872, reminded him of their happy days in England: "The Queen looked after us like a loving Mother ... Winterchen, the way in which everything was arranged, the consideration in all respects, the marks of friendship shown by all the other gentlemen at the Court, made leaving England very hard for me ... Oh Winterchen, those were really happy days."

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