Queen Victoria. Franz Xaver Winterhalter. Signed and dated 1843. Oil on canvas. 64.8 x 53.4 cm. © Royal Collection Enterprises Limited 2024. RCIN 406010. Courtesy of the Royal Collection Trust. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
This is the "alluring" portrait featured on the cover of Victoria & Albert: Art & Love, edited by Jonathan Marsden (67). Winterhalter has painted the young Queen not as a public personage, but in a rather intimate pose, her long hair loosened and cascading over one shoulder, and wearing a pendant, perhaps the one containing a lock of Albert's hair: the portrait was painted as a twenty-fourth birthday gift for him that year. Not surprisingly, she referred to it in her journal of 13 July that year as a "secret" portrait, and, according to Queen Victoria herself later on, it became his "favourite picture": on 2 January 1873, she wrote in her journal, "After luncheon dear Fanny Gainsborough came to my room & I gave her my statuette in bronze & a print after Winterhalter's head of me with my hair hanging down painted in 1843, which was my darling Albert's favourite picture" (Fanny was the Countess of Gainsborough (1814-1885)) It was not such a "secret" now, but a memory of a happier days that she could share with those close to her. As well as prints, various miniatures were made "after" the original portrait. — Jacqueline Banerjee.
Link to Related Material
Bibliography
A.R. (Reynolds, Anna). Entry 14 in Victoria & Albert: Art & Love. Edited by Jonathan Marsden. London: Royal Collection Publications, 2010: 67. [Review].
"Queen Victoria (1819-1901)." Web. Royal Collection Trust. Web. 28 July 2024.
Queen Victoria's Journals (Library access).
Created 28 July 2024