Alexandra, Princess of Wales

Matthew Noble (c.1817-1876)

1872

White marble on a polished red granite pedestal

Vestibule, Leeds Town Hall

The Headrow, Leeds

The Princess's bust was one of a pair placed in the vestibule here consequent to the royal visit to Leeds in 1868 to open the new General Infirmary. It stands opposite the Prince of Wales's bust by the same sculptor, and contributes to the rather funereal feel of the vestibule (see Linstrum 412). It is not, somehow, as vital as the Prince's bust — not a warm portrait of her. In fact, the pair together make the kind of rather routine set that might be popularly reproduced in Parian ware (see Read 65). But perhaps the Princess was always rather stiff: compare this likeness of her with Sir William Goscombe John's on the façade of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

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Photograph (with background digitally removed) and caption by Jacqueline Banerjee, 2011.

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