Empress Eugenie Surrounded by her Ladies in Waiting

Franz Xaver Winterhalter was a German painter and lithographer, known for his flattering portraits of royalty and upper-class society in the mid-19th century. His name has become associated with fashionable court portraiture. Among his best known works are Empress Eugénie Surrounded by her Ladies in Waiting (1855) and the portraits he made of Empress Elisabeth of Austria (1865).

Empress Eugénie Surrounded by her Ladies in Waiting is an oil on canvas painting by the German artist Franz Xaver Winterhalter completed in 1855. It features depictions of the Empress of France, Eugénie de Montijo, and eight of her ladies-in-waiting. The painting was displayed at the Palace of Fontainebleau during the regime of Eugénie's husband, Napoleon III. After Eugénie's exile to England, the painting was given to her, and later displayed in the entrance to her house at Farnborough Hill. It is currently on display at the Château de Compiègne.