Following the brief private visit of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert to Louis-Philippe in September 1843, it was decided that the French king should make an official visit to England. By any standards this was an historic decision as it was to mark the beginning of an Anglo-French rapprochement after centuries of hostilities, most recently the Revolutionary and then the Napoleonic Wars which had together lasted for over twenty years.

The State Visit, the first ever by a reigning French sovereign to these shores, was scheduled to last for eight days beginning on 8 October 1844. On that morning, noted Queen Victoria in her diary, Prince Albert rose at 6 o'clock and, accompanied by the Duke of Wellington, travelled down to Portsmouth to greet the royal visitor arrived there aboard the French paddle frigate Gomer. The ships of the Channel Fleet were dressed overall for the occasion and Louis-Philippe was rowed ashore to great acclamation from both the waiting crowds as well as the saluting warships.

The visit proved a resounding success and amongst its highlights was Louis-Philippe's investiture as Knight of the Garter, a quite unprecedented honour for a foreign Catholic ruler. It is also reputed that the phrase "entente cordiale" was coined at this time and whether true or not the visit ushered in the period of Anglo-French co-operation which embraced the Crimean War and has continued into the present century.

Robins is known to have painted two other compositions recording different aspects of this arrival scene at Portsmouth.