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Minerva Access is the Institutional Repository of The University of Melbourne
Author/s:
Barilo von Reisberg, Eugene A.
Title:
Tradition and innovation: official representations of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert by
Franz Xaver Winterhalter
Date:
2009
Citation:
Barilo von Reisberg, E. A. (2009). Tradition and innovation: official representations of Queen
Victoria and Prince Albert by Franz Xaver Winterhalter . Masters Research thesis , Arts School of Culture and Communication, The University of Melbourne.
Persistent Link:
http://hdl.handle.net/11343/35361
File Description:
Thesis
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Eugene Barilo von Reisberg
Tradition and Innovation:
Official Representations of
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert
by Franz Xaver Winterhalter
Master of Arts Thesis
University of Melbourne, 2009
i
Official Representations of
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert
by
Eugene Barilo von Reisberg, B.A. Hons
Submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of
Master of Arts (by Thesis only)
Faculty of Arts
School of Culture and Communication
University of Melbourne
November 2009
ii
Official Representations of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert
by Eugene Barilo von Reisberg, B.A. Hons
Abstract:
The thesis focuses on four sets of official portraits of Queen Victoria and Prince
Albert, which were painted by the German-born elite portrait specialist Franz Xaver
Winterhalter (1805-1873) between 1842 and 1859. These portraits are examined in detail and
are placed within the contexts of the existing scholarship on Franz Xaver Winterhalter, British
portrait painting of the 1830s and 1840s, and the patronage of portraiture in Britain during
the reigns of William IV and Queen Victoria. The thesis compares and contrasts these works
with official representations of Queen Victoria and her husband by British artists; and
examines the concept of “gender reversal” within the accepted notion of marital pendants by
highlighting Winterhalter’s innovations in the genre of official portraiture.
The thesis challenges the perception that Winterhalter’s employment at the court of
Queen Victoria was due to the Queen’s alleged penchant for “all things German” by placing
Winterhalter’s portraits within the context of the British Royal Collection. It examines the
reasons for the artist’s success at the British court, accentuating among others Winterhalter’s
ability to conceptualise in his portraits of Prince Albert the hierarchically-complex position of
the Prince Consort. The overarching arguments of the thesis focus on two propositions - that
by employing a foreign artist as her official image maker, Queen Victoria acquired ultimate
control over the production, distribution and popularisation of her own imagery; and that this
patronage is illustrative of the emergence of a royal and aristocratic international iconography
that overrode the competing concept of ‘national’ schools of art.
iii
This is to certify that the thesis comprises only my original work except where indicated in the
preface; due acknowledgment has been made in the text to all other material used; the
thesis is 31,177 words in length (or 37,336 words in length inclusive of footnotes), but
exclusive of tables, maps, appendices and bibliography.
--------------------------------------------------------Eugene Barilo von Reisberg
27 November 2009
iv
Mr Eugene Barilo von Reisberg
Student no 80080
Tradition and Innovation: Official Representations of Queen Victoria and Prince
Albert by Franz Xaver Winterhalter
Short Abstract:
The thesis focuses on four sets of official portraits of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert by
Franz Xaver Winterhalter. It establishes the context and discourse of British portraiture and
its patronage during the 1830s and 1840s; compares and contrasts Winterhalter’s 1842
portraits of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert with earlier representations of the Queen and
Prince; examines in detail Winterhalter’s official portraits of Victoria and Albert, traditions and
innovations within these works, and the meaning and significance of their semiotic
conceptualisation.
v
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The life and work of Franz Xaver Winterhalter (1805-1873) has been a subject of my
dedicated research for a number of years, and brought me in touch with a fascinating group
of people and numerous public and private collections across many countries and three
continents. It would probably be impossible to enumerate everyone, who in many different
ways contributed to my understanding and knowledge of Winterhalter’s oeuvre. Therefore, I
would like to acknowledge those, without whom this particular thesis would not have been
possible.
–
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, and the curatorial team of the Royal
Collections, in particular Mr Desmond Shawe-Taylor, The Keeper of the Pictures, Ms Janice
Sacher, Curator of the Royal Collections, and Dr Susie Owens, of the Royal Library and
Print Room, Windsor Castle;
–
His Majesty Albert II, King of the Belgians, and the staff of the Royal
Collections, in particular Mlle Martine Vermeire;
–
the Estate of the Earl of Beauchamp, Mandresfield Court: Mr P.W.A. Hughes;
–
La Trobe University Art Museum: Ms Rhonda Noble, and the staff of the
Borchardt Library;
–
Musée Condé, Château de Chantilly: Mme Nicole Garnier;
–
Musée d’Orsay: Mlle Caroline Mathieu;
–
Musée du Château de Compiègne: Mlle Françoise Maison and Mlle
Emmanuelle Macé ;
–
Musée du Louvre: Mme Elisabeth Foucart-Walter;
–
Musée Jacquemart-André: Mlle Hélène Couot;
–
Musée National du Château de Versailles: Mlle Valérie M.C. Bajou;
–
Museum of Russian Art, Kiev: Research Library;
–
Pechersky Monastery, Kiev: Research Library;
–
Rhode Island School of Design, The Museum: Ms Maureen O’Brien;
vi
–
State Library of Victoria, Melbourne;
–
University of Melbourne: Baillieu and E.R.C. Libraries.
In many personal ways, Ms Sadie Chandler, the Earl and Countess of Clancarty, Dr
Vivien Gaston, Ms Catherine Holc, Mr Charles Nodrum, Ms Louise Oliver, Ms Sonia Payes, Mr
Greg Page-Turner, Mr Paul Taylor, Ms Lee Tierney, and M. Christophe Vachaudez for their
contribution, assistance, and the willing ear during the preparation of this thesis.
Last but not least, I am deeply indebted to my thesis supervisor and mentor, Dr
Alison Inglis, for her continuous support and encouragement, and for helping me to channel
my creative energies in order to assemble the disparate threads of my previous research on
Franz Xaver Winterhalter into a coherent piece of academic writing.
Eugene Barilo von Reisberg,
Melbourne, 2009
vii
The Chicago Style has been adhered to throughout the thesis (cf. The Chicago
Manual of Style, 15th Edition (Chicago and London: the University of Chicago Press, 2003)).
Please, note the following exceptions which have been adhered to consistently
throughout the theses:
As full bibliography appears at the end of the thesis, only short citation of sources
appears in footnotes (cf. ibid, 594-5). Cited sources have been abbreviated to the surname of
the author and the date of the publication. For example, “Stanley 1916, 286” instead of
“Eleanor Stanley, Twenty Years at Court: From the Correspondence of the Hon. Eleanor
Stanley, Maid of Honour to Her Late Majesty Queen Victoria 1842-1862, ed. Mrs Steuart
Erskine (London: Nisbett, 1916), 286.”
The full reference list of abbreviations appears in the Bibliography section, i.e.:
Stanley 1916
Stanley, Eleanor. Twenty Years at Court: From the Correspondence of the
Hon. Eleanor Stanley, Maid of Honour to Her Late Majesty Queen Victoria
1842-1862. Edited by Mrs Steuart Erskine. London: Nisbett, 1916.
With the exception of sovereign heads of state, foreign names and titles of nobility
have been preserved throughout the text, for example, Fürstin or Duchesse instead of
Duchess; or Freiherr instead of Baron, etc.
Relevant page numbers (where known) have been provided for newspaper citations.
viii
CONTENTS:
Acknowledgements
iv
List of Figures
x
Introduction
1
Chapter I
Establishing the Context:
11
British Portraiture and its Patronage, 1830-1837
Chapter II
Early Official Portraits of
31
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, 1837-1842
Chapter III
Franz Xaver Winterhalter’s Official Portraits of
65
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, 1843-1859
Conclusion
94
Bibliography
98
Illustrations
111
Appendix I
169
Appendix II
175
ix
LIST OF FIGURES:
Cover:
Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), Queen Victoria (1819-1901), 1843, oil
on canvas, 273.1 x 161.6 cm, HM Queen Elizabeth II, Windsor Castle (The Royal
Collection © HM Queen Elizabeth II) (Detail of Fig. 46).
Fig. 1.
Sir Thomas LAWRENCE (1769-1830), Karl Erzherzog von Österreich, Herzog von
Teschen (1771-1847) [Charles, Archduke of Austria], oil on canvas, 269.9 x 178.4
cm, HM Queen Elizabeth II, Windsor Castle (from Millar 1977, plate XXVIII).
Fig. 2.
Samuel DIEZ (1803-1873), after Sir William BEECHEY (1753-1839), Queen
Adelaide (1792-1849), née Prinzessin von Sachsen-Meiningen, c. 1831, oil on
canvas, Meiningen, Meininger Museen (from www.meiningermuseen.de, accessed
15 October 2009).
Fig. 3.
Sir David WILKIE (1785-1841), William IV (1765-1837), 1832, oil on canvas, 270.5
x
177.2
cm,
HM
Queen
Elizabeth
II,
Windsor
Castle
(from
www.royalcollection.org.uk, accessed 15 October 2009).
Fig. 4.
Sir Martin Archer SHEE (1769-1850), William IV (1765-1837), 1833, oil on canvas,
270.5 x 178.1 cm, HM Queen Elizabeth II, Windsor Castle (from
Fig. 5.
Sir Martin Archer SHEE (1769-1850), Queen Adelaide (1792-1849), née Prinzessin
von Sachsen-Meiningen, 1836, oil on canvas, 252.1 x 161.9 cm, HM Queen
Elizabeth II, Buckingham Palace (from www.royalcollection.org.uk, accessed 15
October 2009).
Fig. 6.
Charles ADDAMS (1912-1988), “Ours is a very old family” (from Charles Addams,
The World of Chas Addams, ed. Wilfrid Sheed (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1991),
92).
Fig. 7.
Sir William BEECHEY (1753-1839), Victoria, Duchess of Kent (1786-1861), née
Prinzessin von Sachsen-Coburg-Saalfeld, with her daughter, Princess Victoria of
Kent, later Queen of Great Britain (1819-1901), 1821, oil on canvas, 144.8 x 113
cm, HM Queen Elizabeth II, Buckingham Palace (from Millar 1969, 2: no. 679).
Fig. 8.
Sir George HAYTER (1792-1871), Victoria, Duchess of Kent (1786-1861), née
Prinzessin von Sachsen-Coburg-Saalfeld, 1835, oil on canvas, 253.4 x 142.2 cm, HM
Queen Elizabeth II, Buckingham Palace (from Millar 1992, 2: plate 245).
Fig. 9.
Sir George HAYTER (1792-1871), Victoria, Duchess of Kent (1786-1861), née
Prinzessin von Sachsen-Coburg-Saalfeld, with her daughter, Princess Victoria of
Kent, later Queen of Great Britain (1819-1901), 1834, pencil on paper, 52.4 x 41.3
cm, HM Queen Elizabeth II, Royal Library, Windsor Castle (from Millar 1995, 1:449).
Fig. 10.
Sir George HAYTER (1792-1871), Princess Victoria of Kent (1819-1901), later
Queen of Great Britain, 1833, oil on canvas, HM Albert II, King of the Belgians
(from Millar 1992, 1:xv).
Fig. 11.
Sir David WILKIE (1785-1841), Queen Victoria (1819-1901), 1840, oil on canvas,
Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight, U.K. (from www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk,
accessed 15 October 2009).
x
Fig. 12.
Sir Martin Archer SHEE (1769-1850), Queen Victoria (1819-1901), 1842, oil on
canvas, 270 x 175 cm, London, Royal Academy of Arts (from
www.royalacademy.org.uk, accessed 15 October 2009).
Fig. 13.
Sir George HAYTER (1792-1871), Queen Victoria (1819-1901), 1838-40, oil on
canvas, 269.2 x 185.6 cm, HM Queen Elizabeth II, Buckingham Palace (from
Fig. 14.
Sir George HAYTER (1792-1871), Queen Victoria (1819-1901), 1838, oil on canvas,
London, Guildhall Art Gallery.
Fig. 15.
Sir Edwin LANDSEER (1803-1873), Queen Victoria on Horseback, 1838, oil on
canvas, 52.1 x 43.2 (unfinished), HM Queen Elizabeth II, Windsor Castle (from
Fig. 16.
Sir Edwin LANDSEER (1803-1873), Queen Victoria (1819-1901), 1839, oil on
canvas, 40.6 x 30.5 cm, HM Queen Elizabeth II, Buckingham Palace (from
Fig. 17.
Sir William Charles ROSS (1794-1860), Feodora Fürstin zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg
(1807-1872), née Prinzessin zu Leiningen, 1838, watercolour on ivory, 20 x 14.1
cm, HM Queen Elizabeth II (from www.royalcollection.org.uk, accessed 15 October
2009).
Fig. 18.
Alfred Edward CHALON (1780-1860, after), Henry ROBINSON (1796-1871,
engraver), The Duchess of Sutherland (1806-1868), née Lady Harriet Howard, c.
1830s, engraving, 16.5 x 12 cm, Collection of the Author, Melbourne.
Fig. 19.
Sir William Charles ROSS (1794-1860), Queen Victoria (1819-1901), 1839,
watercolour on ivory, diam: 4.9 cm, HM Queen Elizabeth II (from
Fig. 20.
Sir William Charles ROSS (1794-1860, after), Henry Thomas Ryall (1811-1867,
engraver), Queen Victoria (1819-1901), 1840, stipple engraving, 37.8 x 30.5 cm,
London, National Portrait Gallery (from www.npg.org.uk, accessed 15 October
2009).
Fig. 21.
Alfred Edward CHALON (1780-1860), Queen Victoria
watercolour on paper, HM Albert II, King of the Belgians.
(1819-1901), 1837,
Fig. 21a. Alfred Edward CHALON (1780-1860, after), William Humphries (1794-1865,
engraver), Queen Victoria (1819-1901), c. 1838, steeple engraving, 2.7 x 2 cm
approx., Private Collection, Melbourne.
Fig. 22.
Sir William Charles ROSS (1794-1860), Prince Albert (1819-1861), c. 1839-40,
watercolour on ivory, 14 x 12 cm, HM Queen Elizabeth II (from
Fig. 23.
Sir William Charles ROSS (1794-1860), Prince Albert (1819-1861), 1840,
watercolour on ivory, 20.3 x 13.4 cm, HM Queen Elizabeth II (from
Fig. 24.
Alfred Edward CHALON (1780-1860, attributed), Prince Albert (1819-1861), c. 1840,
watercolour on paper, 31 x 24 cm, Private Collection, London (Courtesy of the Earl
and Countess of Clancarty).
xi
Fig. 25.
George PATTEN (1801-1865, after), Charles Edward WAGSTAFF (1808-1850,
engraver), Albert Prinz von Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha, Herzog von Sachsen (18191861), later Prince Albert, the Prince Consort, 1840, mezzotint, 52.5 x 39.4 cm,
London, National Portrait Gallery (from www.npg.org.uk, accessed 15 October
2009).
Fig. 26.
John PARTRIDGE (1790-1872), Queen Victoria (1819-1901), 1840, oil on canvas,
142.6 x 112.1 cm, HM Queen Elizabeth II, Buckingham Palace (from
Fig. 26a. John PARTRIDGE (1790-1872), Prince Albert (1819-1861), 1841, oil on canvas,
142.9 x 113 cm, HM Queen Elizabeth II, Buckingham Palace (from
Fig. 27.
John LUCAS (1807-1874), Prince Albert (1819-1861), c. 1841-42, oil on canvas,
London, United Service Club.
Fig. 28.
The New Portrait of H.R.H. Prince Albert (from Punch, 17 May 1845, 211).
Fig. 29.
Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), Self-Portrait with the artist’s Brother,
Hermann Winterhalter (1808-1893), 1840, oil on canvas, 84.5 x 71.5 cm, Karlsruhe,
Staatliche Kunsthalle (from Winterhalter 1987-88, 81).
Fig. 30.
Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), after Joseph Karl Stieler (1781-1858),
Sophie Erzherzogin von Österreich (1805-1872), née Prinzessin von Bayern, c.
1825, lithograph, Private Collection (from Barilo von Reisberg 2007, 10).
Fig. 31.
Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873, after), Johann Velten (fl. 1820s-1840s,
lithographer), Niccolo Paganini (1782-1840), c.1826, lithograph, Nürnberg,
Germanisches Nazionalmuseum (from Barilo von Reisberg 2007, 10).
Fig. 32.
Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), Napoléon-Alexandre Berthier, 2nd Prince
et Duc de Wagram (1810-1887), with his daughter, Mlle Malcy Berthier de Wagram
(1832-1884), later Princesse Murat, 1837 (Salon 1838), oil on canvas, 186 x 138
cm, Grosbois, Société d’Encouragement à l’Élevage du Cheval Français (from
Winterhalter 1987-88, 80).
Fig. 33.
Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), Louis-Philippe, King of the French
(1773-1850), 1839 (Salon 1839), oil on canvas, 260 x 190 cm, Musée National du
Château de Versailles (from Winterhalter 1987-88, 89).
Fig. 34.
Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), Princesse Clémentine d’Orléans (18171907), later Prinzessin von Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha, 1838 (Salon 1839), oil on
canvas, 206 x 137 cm, Private Collection (from Barilo von Reisberg 2007, 28).
Fig. 35.
Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), Henri d’Orléans, Duc d’Aumale (18221897), 1839 (Salon 1839), oil on canvas, present location unknown (copy at the
Musée National du Château de Versailles) (from Barilo von Reisberg 2007, 30).
Fig. 36.
Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), Louise-Marie, Queen of the Belgians
(1812-1850), née Princesse d’Orléans, with her son, Leopold Duc de Brabant (18331909), later Leopold II, King of the Belgians, 1836, oil on canvas, 123.2 x 104.1 cm,
HM Queen Elizabeth II, Buckingham Palace (from www.royalcollection.org.uk,
xii
Fig. 36a. Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), Philippe Alexandre, Herzog von
Württemberg (1838-1917), 1841, oil on canvas, 72.4 x 58.4 cm, HM Queen
Elizabeth II, Osborne House (from www.royalcollection.org.uk, accessed 15 October
2009).
Fig. 37.
Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), Victoire, Duchesse de Nemours (18221857), née Prinzessin von Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha, 1840, oil on canvas, 215 x
140 cm, Musée National du Château de Versailles (from www.culture.gouv.fr,
Fig. 38.
Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), Victoire, Duchesse de Nemours (18221857), née Prinzessin von Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha, 1841, Oil on canvas, 121.9 x
98.4 cm, HM Queen Elizabeth II, Buckingham Palace (from Millar 1992, 2: plate
755).
Fig. 39.
Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), Leopold I, King of the Belgians (17901865), 1841, oil on canvas, 121.3 x 98.4 cm, HM Queen Elizabeth II, Buckingham
Palace (from Millar 1992, 2: plate 752).
Fig. 40.
Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), Louise-Marie, Queen of the Belgians
(1812-1850), née Princesse d’Orléans, 1841, oil on canvas, 121.3 x 97.8 cm, HM
Queen Elizabeth II, Buckingham Palace (from www.royalcollection.org.uk, accessed
15 October 2009).
Fig. 41.
on canvas, 133.4 x 97.8 cm, HM Queen Elizabeth II, Windsor Castle (from
Fig. 42.
Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), Prince Albert (1819-1861), 1842, oil on
canvas, 132.7 x 97.2 cm, HM Queen Elizabeth II, Windsor Castle (from
Fig. 43.
Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), Ferdinand, Duc d’Orléans (1810-1842),
1842, oil on canvas, 218 x 140 cm, Musée National du Château de Versailles (from
www.culture.gouv.fr, accessed 15 October 2009).
Fig. 44.
Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), Henri d’Orléans, Duc d’Aumale (18221897), c. 1839-40, oil on canvas, 92 x 74 cm, Musée Condé, Château de Chantilly
(from www.culture.gouv.fr, accessed 15 October 2009).
Fig. 45.
on canvas, 133 x 97 cm, Musée National du Château de Versailles (from Duchess of
York 1991, 81).
Fig. 46.
on canvas, 273.1 x 161.6 cm, HM Queen Elizabeth II, Windsor Castle (The Royal
Collection © HM Queen Elizabeth II).
Fig. 47.
canvas, 274.3 x 162.6 cm, HM Queen Elizabeth II, Windsor Castle (The Royal
Fig. 48.
Charles BOIT (1663-1727), Queen Anne (1665-1714) and Prince George of
Denmark (1653-1708), 1706, enamel, 25.4 x 18.4 cm, HM Queen Elizabeth II
(from www.royalcollection.org.uk, accessed 15 October 2009).
xiii
Fig. 49.
Michael DAHL (1659-1743), Prince George of Denmark (1653-1708), 1704, oil on
canvas, 312 x 274.7 cm, HM Queen Elizabeth II (from www.royalcollection.org.uk,
Fig. 50.
Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), Leopold I, King of the Belgians (17901865), 1840, oil on canvas, 278 x 181 cm, Musée National du Château de
Versailles (from Winterhalter 1987-88, 85).
Fig. 51.
Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), Hélène, Duchesse d’Orleans (1814-
1858), née Prinzessin von Mecklenburg-Schwerin, with her son Louis-Philippe
d’Orléans, Comte de Paris (1838-1894), 1839, oil on canvas, 215 x 140 cm, Musée
National du Château de Versailles (from Winterhalter 1987-88, 90).
Fig. 52.
George PATTEN (1801-1865), Prince Albert (1819-1861), 1840, oil on canvas,
Wellington College, Crowthorne, Berkshire, U.K. (from Millar 1992, 1:201).
Fig. 53.
Sir Thomas LAWRENCE (1769-1830), King George III (1738-1820), c. 1792, oil on
canvas,
269.2
x
117.8
cm,
HM
Queen
Elizabeth
II
(from
Fig. 54.
Sir Thomas LAWRENCE (1769-1830), Leopold Prinz von Sachsen-Coburg-Saalfeld
(1790-1865), later Leopold I, King of the Belgians, 1821, oil on canvas, 269.9 x
182.3 cm, HM Queen Elizabeth II (from www.royalcollection.org.uk, accessed 15
October 2009).
Fig. 55.
Sir Thomas LAWRENCE (1769-1830), The Prince Regent (later George IV) (17621830), 1818, oil on canvas, 295 x 204 cm, Dublin City Council: Civic Portrait
Collection (from Levey 2005, 204).
Fig. 56.
Sir Thomas LAWRENCE (1769-1830), King George IV (1762-1830), 1821, oil on
canvas,
289.6
x
200.7
cm,
HM
Queen
Elizabeth
II
(from
Fig. 57.
Sir Anthony van DYCK (1599-1641), King Charles I (1600-1649), 1636, oil on
canvas,
248.3
x
153.6
cm,
HM
Queen
Elizabeth
II
(from
Fig. 58.
Sir Edwin LANDSEER (1803-1873), Queen Victoria and Prince Albert at the Bal
Costumé, 12 May 1842, 1842-1847, oil on canvas, 142.6 x 111.8 cm, HM Queen
Elizabeth II (from www.royalcollection.org.uk, accessed 15 October 2009).
Fig. 59.
Comparison between Fig. 47 and the Detail of Fig. 58 (with the figure of Prince
Albert reversed).
Fig. 60.
Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), Napoléon III, Emperor of the French
(108-1873), 1853, oil on canvas, destroyed by fire, Palais de Tuileries, 1870
(image known from a copy) (from Barilo von Reisberg 2007, 89).
Fig. 61.
Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), Eugénie, Empress of the French (18261920), née Condessa de Montijo de Teba de Guzman, 1853, oil on canvas,
destroyed by fire, Palais de Tuileries, 1870 (image known from a copy) (from
Barilo von Reisberg 2007, 89).
Fig. 62.
Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), Eugénie, Empress of the French (18261920), with her Ladies in Waiting, 1855, oil on canvas, 300 x 420 cm, Musée
National du Château de Compiègne (from Winterhalter 1987-88, 130).
xiv
Fig. 63.
Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), Queen Victoria (1819-1901), 1855,
watercolour, 38.2 x 26.7 cm, HM Queen Elizabeth II, Royal Library, Windsor Castle
(from Duchess of York 1991, 75).
Fig. 64.
Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), Prince Albert (1819-1861), 1855,
watercolour, 38.3 x 26.7 cm, HM Queen Elizabeth II (Royal Library, Windsor
Castle) (from Duchess of York 1991, 137).
Fig. 65.
on canvas, 241.9 x 157.5 cm, HM Queen Elizabeth II, Buckingham Palace (The
Royal Collection © HM Queen Elizabeth II).
Fig. 66.
canvas, 241.9 x 158.1 cm, HM Queen Elizabeth II, Buckingham Palace (The Royal
Fig. 67.
Details of no. 62: Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), Eugénie, Empress of
the French (1826-1920), with her Ladies in Waiting, 1855, oil on canvas, 300 x 420
cm, Musée National du Château de Compiègne (from Winterhalter 1987-88, 130).
Fig. 68.
Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), Princess Tatiana Alexandrovna
Youssoupova (1828-1879), née Countess Ribeaupierre, 1858, oil on canvas, 147 x
Franz
104 cm, St Petersburg, the State Hermitage (from Berezina 1983, 485).
Fig. 69.
Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), The Royal Family: Queen Victoria
(1819-1901) and Prince Albert (1819-1861), with their Five Eldest Children, [left to
right] Prince Alfred (1844-1900), Albert Edward, Prince of Wales (1841-1910),
Princess Alice (1843-1878), Princess Helena (1846-1923), and Victoria, the
Princess Royal (1840-1901), 1846, oil on canvas, 260.2 x 316.9 cm, HM Queen
October 2009).
Fig. 70.
Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), Prince Alfred (1844-1900), Princess
Helena (1846-1923), and Princess Alice (1843-1878), 1847, watercolour on paper,
24 x 35.4 cm, HM Queen Elizabeth II, Royal Library, Windsor Castle (Duchess of
York 1991, 90).
Fig. 71.
Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), Duleep Singh, Maharajah of Lahore
(1837-1893), 1854, oil on canvas, 203.8 x 109.5 cm, HM Queen Elizabeth II,
Osborne House (from www.royalcollection.org.uk, accessed 15 October 2009).
Fig. 72.
Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), Wilhelm I, King of Prussia (1797-1888),
later Emperor of Germany, 1861, oil on canvas, 271 x 180 cm, missing since 1945,
presumed destroyed at the Berlin Schloß (from Barilo von Reisberg 2007, 128).
Fig. 73.
Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), Augusta, Queen of Prussia (18111890), née Prinzessin von Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach, later Empress of Germany,
1861, oil on canvas, 271 x 180 cm, missing since 1945, presumed destroyed at the
Berlin Schloß (from Winterhalter 1987-88, 129).
Fig. 74.
Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), The First of May: Queen Victoria (18191901) and Prince Albert (1819-1861) with Prince Arthur (1850-1942) and Arthur
Wellesley, Duke of Wellington (1769-1852), 1851, oil on canvas, 106.7 x 129.5 cm,
HM Queen Elizabeth II, Windsor Castle (from www.royalcollection.org.uk, accessed
15 October 2009).
xv
Fig. 75.
Prince Albert “At Home” (from Punch, 20 March 1847, 119).
Fig. 76.
Prince Albert’s Studio (from Punch, 23 October 1843, 180).
Fig. 77.
Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), Edouard André (1833-1894), 1857, oil
on canvas, 147.5 x 102.5 cm, Paris, Musée Jacquemart-André (from Winterhalter
1987-88, 135).
Fig. 78.
Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), Alexander II Nikolaevitch, Emperor of
All the Russias (1818-1881), 1857, oil on canvas, present location unknown (image
known from a photograph in the author’s collection).
Fig. 79.
Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), Friedrich Wilhelm Kronzprinz von
Preußen (1831-1888) and Victoria Kronprinzessin von Preußen (1840-1901, née
Princess of Great Britain), with their two eldest children, Wilhelm (1859-1941) and
Charlotte (1860-1919), 1862, oil on canvas, 248.3 x 180.3 cm, HM Queen
Elizabeth II, Osborne House (from Barilo von Reisberg 2007, 131).
Fig. 80.
Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), Albert Edward, Prince of Wales (18411910), later King Edward VII, 1864, oil on canvas, 162.2 x 111.4 cm, HM Queen
October 2009).
Fig. 81.
Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), Alexandra, Princess of Wales (18441925), née Princess of Denmark, later Queen Alexandra, 1864, oil on canvas,
162.2 x 1114 cm, HM Queen Elizabeth II, Buckingham
Palace
(from
Fig. 82.
on canvas, 211.8 x 142.2 cm, The Estate of the Earl of Beauchamp, Mandresfield
Court (from Barilo von Reisberg 2007, 147).
Fig. 83.
Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), Feodora Fürstin zu HohenloheLangenburg (1807-1872), née Prinzessin zu Leiningen, 1872, oil on canvas, 40.6 x
32.4 cm, HM Queen Elizabeth II, Windsor Castle (from Millar 1992, 2: plate 739).
xvi
INTRODUCTION
A “regular dull evening” at Windsor Castle on 24 March 1845 was enlivened by the
youthful Queen Victoria’s impassioned speech about the state of British portraiture, “a terrible
broadside at English artists, both as regards their works and … their prices, and their
charging her particularly outrageously high.” 1 The twenty-six-year old Queen spoke from
experience. As the heir apparent to the British throne, she had been painted from infancy by
a succession of artists, vying for the patronage of the future sovereign. From her accession in
1837, the Queen sat to numerous painters who failed to satisfy the requirements of official
portraiture in the eyes of the monarch, her courtiers, and the critics. Finally, in the sixth year
of her reign, she extended an invitation to a foreign painter, Franz Xaver Winterhalter (18051873), who came highly recommended by her relatives at the courts of France and Belgium.
The artist arrived in London in June 1842, and rapidly proceeded to produce a modestly-sized
three-quarter-length portrait of the Queen in a white ball-gown and a pendant of Prince
Albert in the Field-Marshal’s uniform. Upon completion, the two portraits were universally
judged an immediate success. 2 They confirmed Queen Victoria’s high opinion of the artist,
and became the foundation for a rich and prolific patronage, that lasted thirty years. Among
the resulting commissions, numbering in excess of 120 paintings, watercolours and drawings,
are some of the most iconic, celebrated, and beloved images of Winterhalter’s oeuvre, and of
Victorian portrait painting in general.
The necessity of inviting Winterhalter to London has never been satisfactorily
explained, and there are numerous reasons for this gap in scholarship. Preliminary findings
on Franz Xaver Winterhalter, a nineteenth-century German-born, internationally renowned
court portrait painter, have shown that very few publications of academic merit have been
written on the artist to date. This is rather surprising, given that for nearly forty years, from
the 1830s to the 1870s, Winterhalter was one of the most popular and sought after elite
portrait specialists of his time. He worked for King Louis-Philippe of the French, Emperor
1
Hon. Eleanor Stanley, to her father, Edward Stanley, Windsor Castle, 24 March 1845; quoted in
Stanley 1916, 286.
2
Millar 1992, 1:286.
1
Napoleon III of the French, Queen Victoria of Great Britain, Emperor Alexander II of Russia,
and Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria. 3 He painted kings and emperors of Belgium, Brazil,
Germany, Mexico, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Württemberg, and the sovereign rulers of
numerous German duchies and principalities, including Baden, Mecklenburg-Strelitz, SachsenCoburg und Gotha, and Sachsen-Meiningen, as well as their spouses, families, and their
numerous retinues. He portrayed the upper echelons of the pan-European aristocracy – the
Bariatinskys, Shouvalovs, and Youssoupovs of Russia, the Hamiltons and Sutherlands of
Britain, the Montesquious, Noailles, and Wagrams of France, the Chimays and BeaufortSpontins of Belgium, the Branickis, Krasinskis, and Potockis of Poland – as well as elite
European banking dynasties, like the Hottinguers, Metzlers, and Seligmanns. The list of his
sitters reads like an illustrated who’s who of the Almanach de Gotha.
However, Winterhalter’s work and legacy have been virtually ignored since his death
in 1873. I would argue that the reasons for this are as numerous as they are complex. First of
all, there was the politico-ideological reason. With the fall of the Second Empire in France in
1870, the Communist Revolution in Russia in 1917, and mass abdications of rulers and
sovereigns of the German states in the aftermath of the First World War in 1918,
Winterhalter’s portraits came to embody the very antithesis of succeeding regimes and their
political ideologies. In other words, as the artist had worked for former regimes, he was
deemed to be a representative of them. Secondly, the foundation of art academies across
European capitals from the seventeenth to nineteenth century emphasised the nurturing and
patronage of the native talent, and established the notion of a ‘national’ school of art. Though
of German origins, Winterhalter’s major contribution was to the portrait painting of France,
Britain, and Russia. Winterhalter arguably ‘spawned’ a number of German followers in terms
of artists who imitated his painterly manner and style of portraiture, but his actual
contribution to German art was limited. Therefore, Winterhalter’s cosmopolitanism did not fit
within the limiting notion of ‘national schools.’ His works tended to be excluded from national
surveys of art, his oeuvre continued to be overlooked by art historians, whose studies likewise
3
This brief summation of Winterhalter’s principal sitters is drawn from Barilo von Reisberg 2007, 155158.
2
concentrated on representative artists of their respective countries. Thirdly, as provenance
research shows, Winterhalter’s oeuvre, which mainly consists of portraiture, remained
predominantly in the private collections of his sitters and their descendants for most of his life
and well into the middle of the twentieth century. Perhaps the most famous example of this is
his celebrated group portrait of Empress Eugénie with her Ladies in Waiting (fig. 62), which
remained in the private collection of Empress Eugénie and her descendants in exile until its
sale and subsequent acquisition for the French national collections in 1927. 4 Winterhalter’s
superb portraits of the Romanovs and the Russian aristocracy, though nationalised and
expropriated by the Soviet authorities from their former owners, remained hidden within
museum vaults for politico-ideological reasons. Even today, some of Winterhalter’s most
popular portraits, such as those of Princess Elizaveta Esperovna Belosselskaia-Belozerskaia
(1859, oil on canvas) and Pauline Fürstin von Metternich-Winneburg (1860, oil on canvas),
are still in private collections. Therefore, the very absence of Winterhalter’s paintings from
museums and galleries had precluded the public visibility of his works, and arguably
accounted for the lack of popular and scholarly interest in his art until fairly recently. Last but
not least, Winterhalter’s oeuvre suffered from the general scholarly neglect of academic (or
Salon) art and portraiture of the middle of the nineteenth century, an area that has only
recently begun to be reappraised. The reasons for this neglect, as well as for the reversal of
this attitude and the resurgence of academic and popular interest in this area are still a
subject of an ongoing scholarly debate. 5 It deserves a deeper examination, which is beyond
the scope of this study.
Given the reasons enumerated above, the scarcity of academic research into the art
and life of Franz Xaver Winterhalter appears less surprising. Of only five monographs
4
For the provenance of the painting, see Barilo von Reisberg 2007, 96. I am using the term “French
national collections”, as the painting was originally acquired in 1927 by Baronne d’Alexandry
d’Oregnani, with assistance from Vicomte de Noialles, Baron de Beauverger and Comte Cambacérès,
for the Musée du Louvre; placed at the Musée National de Malmaison; and passed in 1952 to the
Musée National du Château de Compiègne, where it remains.
5
For an excellent discussion on the topic by a group of eminent nineteenth-century scholars, see
Annette Blaugrund, Werner Busch, Henri Dorra, Lynda Nead, and Linda Nochlin, “Whither the Field
of Nineteenth-Century Art History”, Nineteenth Century Worldwide 1, no. 1 (2002), http://www.19thcartworldwide.org.
3
published on Winterhalter to date, 6 only one stands up as a work of scholarship – Armin
Panter’s Studien zu Franz Xaver Winterhalter. 7 Of Winterhalter’s six solo exhibitions (all of
them posthumous), most were of a commercial or fund-raising nature. 8 Only one of these –
Franz Xaver Winterhalter & the Courts of Europe 1830-1870, edited by Richard Ormond and
Carol Blackett-Ord, and shown at the National Portrait Gallery in London and the Petit Palais
in Paris in 1987-1988 – was accompanied by a dedicated publication with well-researched
essays and catalogue entries. It is, therefore, with a thorough understanding of the current
scholarship that I am embarking on a new research thesis on Franz Xaver Winterhalter.
Bearing in mind the directions of previous studies on the artist, I would like to pursue topics
hitherto overlooked in the above-mentioned publications, namely the examination of
Winterhalter’s portraits of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in terms of the wider context of
British portrait painting and patronage.
Queen Victoria was among Winterhalter’s most prolific patrons. Of nearly 1,000 works
by the artist currently identified, over 200 are connected with British sitters. Over 120 of
these were either commissioned by or directly associated with Queen Victoria, and the
majority of these are still in the British Royal Collection. The corpus of works emanating from
the British Court and British sitters constitutes indeed a significant body within Winterhalter’s
oeuvre. As far as the treatment of Winterhalter’s works is concerned, Britain also represents
an anomaly in all categories mentioned above, except for the last one. As Britain remained a
6
These include Ingeborg Eismann, Franz Xaver Winterhalter (1805-1873): Der Fürstenmaler Europas
(Petersberg: Michael Imhof Verlag, 2007); Dr Hubert Mayer, Die Künstlerfamilie Winterhalter: Ein
Briefwechsel (Waldschut: Landkreis, 1998); Dr Armin Panter, “Studien zu Franz Xaver Winterhalter
(1805-1873)” (PhD diss., Universität Karlsruhe, 1996); Franz Wild, Neckrologe und Verzeichnisse des
Gemälde von Franz und Hermann Winterhalter (Zürich: Hofer und Burger, 1894). I am grateful to
Emmanuel Burlion for bringing to my attention the following recent studies: Emmanuel Burlion,
Portraits de Franz Xaver Winterhalter ou Notice Historique sur les personages peints par Franz Xaver
Winterhalter (Brest: Emmanuel Burlion, 2007); and Simone Zuther, “Franz Xaver Winterhalter and the
Business of Portraying Women in Second Empire Paris” (PhD dissertation-in-progress, Virginia
Commonwealth University, 2009) (Emmanuel Burlion, email to the author, 8 October 2009).
7
However, this work remained a scholarly transcript; it has not been translated from German, and has
not been published as a stand-alone monograph to date.
8
These include Winterhalter-Ausstellung (Karlsruhe: Kunsthalle zu Baden, 1873); Winterhalter:
Portrait de Dames du Second Empire (Paris: Galerie Jaques Seligmann, 1928); Winterhalter Loan
Exhibition (London: Knoedler Galleries, 1936-7); Franz Xaver Winterhalter (Menzenschwand:
Kunsthalle, 1973); Richard Ormond and Carol Blackett-Ord eds., Franz Xaver Winterhalter & the
Courts of Europe, 1830-70 (London: National Portrait Gallery, Paris: Petit Palais, 1987-1988); and
Franz Xaver Winterhalter: Das Frühwerk (Landschut: Schloss Bonndorf, 2005).
4
monarchy, Winterhalter’s portraits of the British Royal Family and aristocracy have never
been politically censored. Because of the centrality of his works to the iconography of British
royalty and aristocracy, Winterhalter’s paintings have been frequently included in national
surveys, and especially in the intercontinental exhibitions of art and industry that toured to all
corners of the British Empire in the late nineteenth century. 9 Furthermore, because of the
unique nature of British royal and aristocratic collections, which blur the lines between private
ownership and public accessibility, Winterhalter’s works remained publicly visible in royal
palaces and aristocratic homes despite their relative absence from museum collections. 10
How do Winterhalter’s portraits of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert fit within the
wider framework of British art? The difficulty in contextualising Winterhalter’s portraits of the
early Victorian period results from the fact that while British portraiture of the Georgian era
and of the later Victorian and Edwardian periods have been broadly examined in
monographs, articles and exhibitions both of a scholarly and popular nature, the period which
is of interest to this study, the 1830s and 1840s, immediately preceding Winterhalter’s arrival
in Britain and covering his early period at the court of Queen Victoria, remains relatively in
shadow. The current scholarship on British portraiture offers little insight into the period
between the death of Sir Thomas Lawrence in 1830 and the firm establishment of such artists
as George Frederic Watts (1817-1904), Sir John Everett Millais (1829-1896), and Frederic,
Lord Leighton (1830-1896), as portrait specialists from the 1860s onwards. Similarly, the
patronage of William IV and Queen Adelaide, albeit brief, lasting from 1830 to 1837, has not
received specialist attention. Sir Oliver Millar in his authoritative volumes on the collections of
HM Queen Elizabeth II, summarily appends William IV at the end of the Georgian era, 11 while
William Whitley, in his Art in England 1821-1837, ceases to discuss portraiture past the year
9
See Barilo von Reisberg 2007, 160-166, for the list of British exhibitions which included works by (or
after) Winterhalter.
10
See Barilo von Reisberg 2007, 159, for the list of Winterhalter’s works in the United Kingdom’s
public collections. A number of works by Winterhalter are installed in the areas of the British Royal
Family’s residences, such Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, and Osborne House, which are open to
the public (as sighted by the author, August – September 2005). Winterhalter’s portraits in the
collections of the Dukes of Beaufort, Sutherland, and Wellington, and of the late Earl of Beauchamp,
are also displayed in the areas, which are open to the public. Winterhalter’s portraits of Queen Victoria
and Prince Albert, which were formerly in the collection of Sir Robert Peel, were frequently included
in the reviews of that collection. Cf. “Sir Robert Peel’s Pictures,” John Bull, 1 May 1847, 284, and “Sir
Robert Peel’s Collection of Pictures,” Glasgow Herald (Glasgow), 3 May 1846, 3.
11
Millar 1969, 1:xl.
5
1830. 12 The leading scholar on the subject, Richard Ormond, dismisses this period as
“obscure”, 13 an artistic “vacuum, which remained unfulfilled.” 14 He concedes that in the
sphere of portrait painting “there were certainly a number of artists whose work has been
undeservedly ignored”, but points out that they “were essentially men of the second rank,”
whose paintings lacked “the sense of grand design and painterly panache characteristic of
their predecessors.” 15 His opinions are echoed by Christopher Newall, who refers to the
portrait painting of the early Victorian period as “enfeebled and lacking in leadership.” 16
Individual portrait painters practicing during the seven-year reign of William IV, from
1830 to 1837, and the early decades of Queen Victoria’s, have likewise received little
scholarly assessment. Artists like John Lucas (1807-1874) and Sir Martin Archer Shee (17691850) were subjects of posthumous monographs published by their descendants; the former
being an illustrated and adulatory synopsis of the artist’s life, 17 the latter concentrating on
Shee’s administrative career as President of the Royal Academy rather than a critical and
analytical evaluation of his oeuvre. 18 The few academic in-depth studies of the portrait artists
of the era include a monograph by William Roberts on Sir William Beechey (1753-1839);
several publications on Sir Edwin Landseer (1802-1873); and a study of Sir Francis Grant
(1803-1878) by Catherine Wills. 19 As pioneering works in their respective areas of
scholarship, they concentrate predominantly on the artists, and though offering a critical reappraisal, they lack the analytical contextualisation necessary for this study.
Panter and Ormond’s works on Winterhalter were ground-breaking in their own right
as the first in-depth studies on the artist. Understandably, they tend to be chronological and
exclusionist: the emphasis of the two works is primarily on the artist’s life and the overview of
12
Whiteley 1930, passim.
Ormond 1967, 397.
14
Ormond 1973, 1:vi.
15
Ibid.
16
Christopher Newall, “The Victorians: 1830-1880”, in Strong 1991, 229.
17
See Arthur Lucas, John Lucas, Portrait Painter, 1828-1874 (London: Methuen, 1910).
18
See Martin Archer Shee, jnr., The Life of Sir Martin Archer Shee, President of the Royal Academy,
(London: Longman, 1860).
19
See, for example, Campbell Lennie, Landseer, The Victorian Paragon (London, Hamish Hamilton,
1976); Richard Ormond et al., Sir Edwin Landseer (London: Thames and Hudson, 1981); William
Roberts, Sir William Beechey, R.A. (London: Duckworth, 1907); John Steegman, “Sir Francis Grant,
P.R.A.: The Artist in High Society,” Apollo, June 1964, 479-486; Catherine Wills, High Society: The
Life and Art of Sir Francis Grant (Edinburgh: National Gallery of Scotland, 2003).
13
6
his oeuvre. For the most part they tend to exclude comparisons between Winterhalter and his
British contemporaries in the genre of portraiture. 20 The study of Victorian pictures in the
collection of Her Majesty the Queen by Oliver Millar, and of Victorian watercolours within the
same collection by Delia Millar, offer by far the most in-depth survey of the earlier
representations of Queen Victoria, before Winterhalter became her exclusive image maker. 21
These studies, however, are understandably limited to the examination of those artists and
paintings that have remained in the British Royal Collection to the present day.
The life and times of Queen Victoria have been broadly examined in countless
biographies and historical surveys. Most of these use Winterhalter’s portraits of the Queen
and her family for illustrative purposes. 22 Several mention Winterhalter with a brief entry,
acknowledging him as Victoria’s favourite artist, but none of them venture deeper to examine
their relationship in terms of patronage and the iconographical significance of the portraits. 23
Such examination is frequently beyond the scope of biographical studies. This is also
symptomatic of the wider use of Winterhalter’s portraits for historical and illustrative
purposes, where the celebrity status of the sitter overshadows the significance of the artist,
and of the portrait as a work of art.
The biography and iconography of Queen Victoria has recently come under scrutiny
by feminist writers and art historians, such as Susan Casteras, Margaret Homans, and
Adrienne Munich. 24 Their texts provide valuable insights and analyses of Victoria’s
monarchical performance and representation. Certain passages have influenced and inspired
20
See Winterhalter, 1987-1988, 37; and Panter 1996, 99.
See Millar 1992, 1:xvii et passim., and Millar 1995, ii:928 et passim.
22
The list of publications on Queen Victoria, her family, her court, and her era in general, which are
illustrated with Winterhalter’s portraits, is innumerable and continues to grow. Principal sources
consulted are mentioned in the bibliography section of this thesis.
23
See the note above. These include (but are not limited to) David Duff, Albert & Victoria, (London:
Tandem, 1972); Christopher Hibbert, Queen Victoria in Her Letters and Journals (London: Viking,
1984); Hermione Hobhouse, Prince Albert: His Life and His Work (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1983);
Elizabeth Longford, Victoria R.I. (London: Harper and Row, 1964); Theodore Martin, The Life &
Times of HRH The Prince Consort (London: Smith & Elder, 1877-80); Stanley Weintraub, Victoria, a
Portrait of a Queen (London: Murray, 1987); Stanley Weintraub, Albert, Uncrowned King (London:
Murray, 1997).
24
See Susan P. Casteras, Images of Victorian Womanhood in English Art (Farleigh Dickinson:
University Press, 1987); Margaret Homans, Royal Representations: Queen Victoria and British
Culture, 1837-1876 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988); 1-32; Margaret Homans and
Adrienne Munich, Remaking Queen Victoria (Cambridge: University Press, 1997); Adrienne Munich,
Queen Victoria’s Secrets (Washington D.C.: Columbia University Press, 1998).
21
7
my own interpretation of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’s portraits by Winterhalter (as will
be seen in the main body of the thesis). However, in their aim to underscore the anomaly of
Victoria’s female rule against the background of a predominantly patriarchal societal
structure, they either lose sight of or intentionally ignore the hereditary – rather than
meritocratic – status of Victoria as a monarch, as well as the fact that Queen Victoria’s unique
position and consequently her experiences were unlike those of any other aristocratic,
middle- or lower-class females of her era. For the most part (though not entirely), they tend
to exclude Winterhalter’s portraits from their considerations. His representations of Victoria’s
empowered femininity and of Prince Albert’s subordinate but respectful dignity go against the
grain of their argument, which they support with illustrations from popular press rather than
official portraiture. John Plunkett, in his valuable analysis of the Queen’s early iconography
within the context of the print media and popular press in Queen Victoria: First Media
Monarch, also tends to exclude Victoria’s portraits by Winterhalter, perhaps because, once
again, they do not conform to the prevalent tabloid images of the Queen, which form the
emphasis of his study. 25
The thesis, therefore, explores the themes hitherto overlooked in the areas of
scholarship on British portraiture and Winterhalter. Prior to contextualising Winterhalter’s
works within the rhetoric and discourse of late Georgian to early Victorian portrait painting, I
need to establish what that discourse was. In the absence of existing scholarly works on the
subject, I am extending the scope of my thesis in the first chapter to survey the discourse on
portraiture from contemporary theoretical writings, exhibition reviews in the British press, and
primary sources such as memoirs, diaries and correspondence. These sources offer a deeper
insight into the portrait painting of the period; the significance of the Royal Academy in the
development and representation of portraiture in British art; the influence of Sir Thomas
Lawrence, as well as the effect his death had on portrait painting and the most prominent
practitioners of the genre of the period. The chapter also examines the patterns of patronage
25
See John Plunkett, Queen Victoria: First Media Monarch (Oxford: University Press, 2003). To the
best of my knowledge, Plunkett’s book does not contain a single reference to Winterhalter’s portraits of
the Queen, although he does discuss her representations in engravings after the portraits by Chalon and
Hayter.
8
of portrait painters by William IV and Queen Adelaide, from 1830 to 1837, and a brief
examination of their state portraits. The chapter provides an important foundation for
incorporating Winterhalter’s portraits of the British Royal Family within the wider context of
British portrait painting and patronage of the time.
Winterhalter was neither the first artist to paint the Queen, nor the only artist
practicing portrait painting in Britain at the time. Therefore, the second chapter will examine
the early official iconography of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert prior to Winterhalter’s arrival
in England, investigate the major contenders for royal patronage in the sphere of official
portraiture, and the popular and critical responses to their portraits of the Queen and Prince.
The chapter will scrutinise Winterhalter’s first pair of portraits of Queen Victoria and Prince
Albert, painted in 1842, not in isolation, but within the rhetoric and discourse surrounding
1830s-1840s British art, portraiture and patronage patterns. The study of the popular and
critical reception of these works will allow for various comparisons to be drawn between
Queen Victoria’s portraits by Winterhalter and those by her earlier iconographers. Also
addressed in this chapter will be the contentious issues regarding Queen Victoria’s patronage
of a foreign – and specifically German – artist, and an examination of Winterhalter’s
employment at the British court against the background of the wider historical patronage of
British and foreign artists by the Royal Family, and of the Anglo-German cultural and political
relations of the late Georgian and early Victorian periods.
The third and final chapter will examine Winterhalter’s official (or state) portraits of
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. The main argument of this chapter is that in creating official
portraits of the Queen and Prince, Winterhalter was faced with the challenge of negotiating
the iconographic “gender reversal” within the accepted notion of marital pendants. While the
iconographic precedents of a female sovereign abound, there was (arguably) no iconographic
precedent for portraying a female sovereign’s husband, who was not automatically a
sovereign in his own right. This chapter investigates how Winterhalter succeeded in this
challenge, how he constructed the image of the Prince Consort, and whether Winterhalter’s
iconography reflected the public perception (and public persona) of the Prince.
9
The overarching arguments of the thesis will focus on two propositions - that by
employing a foreign artist as her official image maker, Queen Victoria acquired ultimate
control over the production, distribution and popularisation of her own imagery; and that this
patronage is illustrative of the emergence of a royal and aristocratic international iconography
that overrode the competing concept of ‘national’ schools of art.
10
CHAPTER I:
ESTABLISHING THE CONTEXT:
BRITISH PORTRAITURE AND ITS PATRONAGE 1830 – 1837
Georgian Portraiture and the Death and Legacy of Sir Thomas Lawrence
British portraiture reached an apogee during the Georgian era in terms of talent and
patronage. Its evolution into a national genre remained uncontested, as religious painting
was discouraged by the Protestant Church, and history painting was seldom practiced. 1 Such
specialists as Allan Ramsay (1713-1784), Francis Cotes (1726-1770), Sir Joshua Reynolds
(1723-1792), Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788), George Romney (1734-1802), Sir Thomas
Lawrence (1769-1830), and numerous others, practiced their craft successfully and
successively, supported by the various factions at Court and by the aristocracy. They
established an iconographic language filled with elegance and panache, celebrating the status
and power of the British aristocracy, the ruling class which dominated the court, military,
political, and religious circles, with the Royal family at its nucleus.
The foundation of the Royal Academy of Art in 1768 under the patronage of George
III (1738-1820) further strengthened the standing of British portrait painters, with the first
three Presidents, Sir Joshua Reynolds, the American-born Benjamin West (1738-1820), and
Sir Thomas Lawrence, being pre-eminent in the field of portraiture and enjoying close
connections and official appointments at Court. Reynolds consistently referred to portraiture
in his Discourses, where he encouraged his Academy pupils in the Third Discourse to “bring
into the lower sphere of art a grandeur of composition and character, that will raise and
ennoble his [portrait paintings] far above their natural rank.” 2 He praised Rubens and Van
Dyck, and advocated the application of Neoclassical aesthetics to the genre of portraiture in
1
On the history and development of portrait painting in Britain, see Sir Roy Strong et al., The British
Portrait 1660-1960 (London: Antique Collectors’ Club, 1991).
2
Delivered to the students of the Royal Academy on the Distribution of Prizes, 14 December 1770;
quoted in Reynolds 1798, 1:73-4.
11
the Seventh Discourse, 3 while taking a stab at the French school of portrait painting in the
Eighth. “Such pompous and laboured insolence of grandeur is so far from creating respect,
that it betrays vulgarity and meanness, and new-acquired consequence,” he wrote. 4 The
Academy’s annual exhibitions, held in the purpose-built gallery at the former royal residence
of Somerset House, emerged as the most important venue to view the nation’s achievements
in the field of portraiture. In fact, these exhibitions became the only forum in which portrait
painters of the day could “advertise their talents and compete with their fellow
practitioners”. 5
The British Institution in Suffolk Street, another important exhibition venue of the
era, founded in 1805, all but proscribed the inclusion of portraiture in its annual exhibitions of
contemporary art, placing the emphasis on historical, subject, and landscape genres; the only
exemption was made for artists practicing portraiture within the framework of miniature and
watercolour mediums. 6 It did, however, serve another important purpose. The British
Institution showed regular curated exhibitions of works by Old European and British masters,
loaned from private aristocratic collections. Judging from exhibition reviews, they included
numerous ancestral portraits by Van Dyck, Reynolds, Gainsborough, and the like. The
Institution provided an important visual link with the portraiture of the past. The two venues,
therefore, facilitated a valuable discourse on the history and development of British and
international portraiture, and allowed ready comparisons between the achievements of the
past and attainments of present portrait practitioners for art critics, as well as “for the
edification of the general public and home-grown, fledgling artists alike.” 7
Exhibition openings at the Royal Academy were popular events, “an increasingly
fashionable form of urban entertainment”, 8 attended by the monarch, members of the Royal
3
quoted ibid., 237.
4
quoted ibid., 255.
5
Hallett 2005, 35.
6
“Royal Academy – Somerset House,” The Morning Chronicle, 17 May 1830, n.p. A number of artists
circumnavigated the exclusion of portraiture by passing their portraits as genre pictures and allegorical
studies.
7
Colley 1992, 176. On the wider cultural and historical significance and implications of loan
exhibitions from private collection at the British Institution, see ibid., 176-177.
8
Ibid.
12
Family, diplomatic corps, aristocracy, and the merchant elite. The sitters and their portraits
were frequently to be found in the same room, enabling the spectators the opportunity to
“weigh up the merits of exhibitors, [and] the chance to exercise their aesthetic
appreciation.” 9 The exhibitions served as the communal exercise in targeted marketing and
self-promotion for established and emerging portrait specialists. They provided the visitors
with an ample opportunity to consider potential artists for future portrait commissions, which
provided a significant source of income for artists, “consequent upon the wealth … and
sometimes the vanity of the people of this great country,” as The Examiner eloquently
pointed out. 10 The British school reigned supreme, as foreign portrait painters rarely exhibited
at the Royal Academy and were seldom invited to work in England at that time. Peter Edward
Stroehling (1768-c.1826) and Johann Zoffany (1733-1810) were among the few exceptions,
working mainly for the Royal Family and accepting occasional commissions outside the
Court. 11
By the end of the third decade of the nineteenth century, the gifted generation of
Georgian portrait painters was slowly dying out: Gainsborough passed away in 1788;
Reynolds in 1792; Romney in 1802; John Opie in 1807; Henry Raeburn in 1823; and George
Dawe died shortly after his triumphant return from St Petersburg in 1829. With Dawe’s death,
Sir Thomas Lawrence became the only elite portrait specialist of the late Georgian era. He
was at the height of his professional career, enjoying the extensive patronage and personal
friendship of the King. The cream of the British aristocracy, prominent politicians, and the
merchant barons – or, as The Morning Chronicle put it, every “Prince Prettyman, Lord Doodle,
Lady Noodle, or Sir Timothy Thingumabob of the present” 12 – flocked to his studio to secure
their likenesses. He imbued his women with dreamy elegance and lively countenance, his
men with aristocratic disdain and perceptive authority, and his children with playful
irreverence and cherubic innocence. 13 Lawrence’s popularity extended to the Continent, to
which he embarked in 1818 at the behest of the Regent (the future George IV), visiting Paris,
9
Ibid.
R.H., “Royal Academy Exhibition,” The Examiner, 12 May 1822, 301.
11
Cf. Millar 1969, passim.
12
“Royal Academy,” The Morning Chronicle, 14 May 1829, n.p.
13
Cf. R.H., “Royal Academy Exhibition,” The Examiner, 4 July 1824, 424.
10
13
Vienna, and Rome in order to portray Napoleonic victors for the purpose-designed Waterloo
Chamber at Windsor Castle. Among the most striking were full-lengths of sovereigns, princes,
and generals standing bolt upright and towering above the spectator, their faces filled with
valiant resolve and regal munificence; their svelte, attenuated figures silhouetted against
dramatic cloudscapes and low horizons, imbuing the portraits with a heightened sense of
heroic pathos and military valour (fig. 1). Lawrence combined a natural ability to capture
likenesses with technical skills and a virtuoso handling of the brush. His colours were vibrant
and fresh; “the tints of the flesh” exquisite; 14 his surfaces richly textured. The critics rarely
found fault with his annual contributions to Academy exhibitions. The Examiner poetically
wrote in 1824: “The Graces always wait upon his pencil.” 15 In 1826 The Times celebrated
Lawrence’s “[arrival] at perfection of the art of portrait painting,” 16 adding that “every fresh
effort he makes appears to surpass that which preceded it.” 17 The Morning Chronicle
summarised matter-of-factly in 1828: “As a portrait painter he has no living equal.”
Lawrence’s professional endeavours were justly rewarded: he was knighted in 1815,
becoming only the second artist (after Reynolds) to attain that distinction; and in 1820 he
succeeded as Principal Painter in Ordinary to the King and was elected President of the Royal
Academy. It was therefore with a sense of shock and dismay that his sudden and unexpected
death at the age of sixty on 7 January 1830 was announced in the papers: “His loss appears
irreparable… all other painters of the day are inferior to him,” said The Morning Chronicle. 18
The same paper further wrote:
What can be said of Sir Joshua Reynolds may be repeated of Sir Thomas
Lawrence: “The rich and the far descended were pleased to be painted by a
Gentleman as well as a Genius.”… Sir Thomas, by his polished manners and
14
“Royal Academy Exhibition,” La Belle Assemblée, August 1822, 333.
The Examiner, 1824, 424-5.
16
“The Royal Academy,” The Times, 29 April 1826, 3.
17
Ibid.
18
“Fine Arts,” The Morning Chronicle, 16 January 1830, n.p.
15
14
habitudes of good society, was the companion of the magnates of the land,
and between Nobility and the Fine Arts a connecting link. 19
Lawrence was honoured with a state funeral, and buried with great pomp in St Paul’s
Cathedral. His former patrons readily agreed to lend nearly a hundred portraits from their
private collections to the artist’s retrospective exhibition, promptly organised by Lawrence’s
heirs at the British Institution. George IV personally lent over thirty Waterloo portraits, 20 while
the respected print dealers Colnaghi and Harding & Lepard prepared engravings from these
works. 21 The posthumous exhibition summarised the canon of portrait painting as established
by the artist. The critical response to his works formed the foundation of the contemporary
discourse on portraiture that continued to set the standard for British portrait painting well
into the 1830s and 1840s. For example, the likeness naturally remained the unyielding
prerequisite and indispensable component in a portrait. A certain degree of artistic licence –
in other words, flattery – was permissible to make “agreeable pictures, however disagreeable
[the] subject”. 22 Yet it was not only “a mere copy of the features”, a “map of face” which was
required of the artist. 23 The emphasis in portraiture during the age of Romanticism was
placed on bringing out “the intellectual character as well as the outward form of the
subject”. 24 Lawrence’s superior abilities in capturing the individual physiognomy as well as
character traits of his sitters set the precedent for portrait painters of the era: “It is the
mental portraiture… which distinguishes Lawrence from all other portrait painters of the
present day”, commented The Times critic. 25
Recognising the fact that a sitter, and especially a female sitter, would most likely
appear in a portrait wearing the latest fashion creation, the critics expected the artist to
subjugate the attire of the sitter to the overall composition of the painting in terms of shape,
hue, and colour. In other words, artists were expected to display the “exquisite management
19
Ibid.
“The Mirror of Fashion,” The Morning Chronicle, 1 February 1830, n.p.
21
“The Lawrence Gallery,” The Morning Chronicle, 25 January 1830, n.p.
22
“Royal Academy Exhibition,” The Examiner, 11 June 1826, 372.
23
The Times, 29 April 1826, 3.
24
Ibid.
25
Ibid.
20
15
of modern dress” in such a way that it complemented the sitter and the painting. 26 Once
again, the portraits of Lawrence were seen as setting an example on how to obscure “the
least agreeable” details of the dress, “enlarge or diminish forms, suit the size, the
chiaroscuro, the colour, and the shape of [the clothes] to the complexion, magnitude and
character of the wearer”. 27 The desired result was “to render [the garments] beautiful were
they to enclose mere blocks, instead of animated human figures”, and, most importantly,
“whatever the fashion may be hereafter, [the] pictured dresses will [continue to] please”. 28
Research into British publications, newspapers and periodicals of the 1820s and
1830s shows that in the early nineteenth century, the word ‘portrait’ had a wider application
than it has today, and equally signified a work of art, as well as a piece of literature or music.
A volume of ‘historical portraits’ frequently referred to an illustrated biographical
compendium; 29 while portraits in the press stood for biographical sketches and obituaries. 30
It can be argued, therefore, that the close inter-relationship between portraiture and
biography in the late Georgian and early Victorian period influenced the approaches to the
appreciation and interpretation of portrait painting. This explains the popular and critical
demand placed upon portraiture to provide a comprehensible narrative as to the identity,
status, and role in society of the sitter, which artists were supposed to achieve through a
variety of representational devices and visual clues such as garments, accessories, details of
the interior or landscape background. In simple words, a king was expected to be shown with
corresponding royal regalia, a general in uniform with military decorations, an actor with a
mask or in the guise of a dramatic character. While such historiographic and iconographic
devices were not new to the genre of portraiture, and date back to representations of deities
26
The Examiner, 11 June 1826, 372.
Ibid.
28
Ibid.
29
Examples of these are numerous, and include William Jerdan (ed), Portrait Gallery of Illustrious and
Eminent Personages of the Nineteenth Century (London: Fisher, Son, & Jackson, 1834); John Burke,
Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Females, including Beauties of the Courts of George IV and William
IV (London: Bull and Churton, 1833), etc.
30
For example, see “Portrait of His Late Majesty George III,” La Belle Assemblée, 1 February 1820,
75, which is a biographical obituary of the late king. La Belle Assemblée also regularly featured
portraits of well-known personages, accompanied by a biographical sketch. See also A. Cassandra
Albinson, “Peeresses in Paint,” (PhD diss., Yale University, 2004), for an in-depth analysis on interchangeability of the notion of literary and painted portraits in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth
century Britain. I am grateful to Dr Alison Inglis for bringing this dissertation to my attention.
27
16
and public officials in Ancient Greece and beyond, it is important to reaffirm the significance
and currency of this approach to portraiture in the early nineteenth century. As Thomas
Carlyle summed up, the portrait’s role was to be “a lighted candle by which the biographies
could be read.” 31
During the sunset of the Georgian era from 1830 to 1837 (and the dawn of the
Victorian age from the late 1830s to early 1840s), few artists were critically judged to be able
to match or surpass Lawrence’s ability to create portraits that encompassed the multifaceted
requirements of the genre. Portraits remained conspicuous at the Royal Academy. The
President and most Royal Academicians were practicing portrait painters, and the press
discussed the artistic merits of their productions – or the lack thereof – in articles, gossip
columns, and exhibition reviews. The celebratory tone with which the critics approached the
displays of portraiture in the 1820s gave way to a more sober examination. If in 1828, The
Examiner commented upon “a very diminished amount of talent in every class of art but
Portrait Painting,” 32 already in 1830 The Times regretted that it could not “congratulate the
Academy on the display of portraiture this season.” 33 In 1832 The Morning Chronicle
expressed a presentiment of the artistic vacuum, indicative of the sense of malaise and a
commonly-held belief in the temporary dearth of native talent: “From Sir Joshua [Reynolds]
to Sir Thomas [Lawrence] there was a mighty gap; and the latter, with all his vices, has left
no one nearly equal in all that relates to grace and captivation.” 34
Of the most prominent artists of this period, Sir William Beechey (1753-1839), the
portrait painter who formerly enjoyed the extensive patronage of George III and his family,
and whose works at times were judged to rival those of Lawrence, was precluded by his
advanced age from stepping into Lawrence’s shoes. He graciously accepted the post of
Principal Painter to William IV, and apart from royal commissions, his main contributions to
the Royal Academy consisted of character studies and portraits of his family and friends.35
31
Thomas Carlyle to David Laing, 3 May 1854; quoted in Carlyle 1999, 29:404-13.
“Royal Academy Exhibition,” The Examiner, 11 May 1828, 308.
33
“Royal Academy Exhibition,” The Times, 12 July 1830, 5.
34
35
Roberts 1907, 172-178.
32
17
When Sir David Wilkie (1785-1841), one of the most remarkable historical and genre
painters of the era, turned to portraiture, the move was not met with critical approbation, but
was interpreted as being motivated by social ambition and financial considerations: “It is
quite clear, that Mr Wilkie has been injured in everything but perhaps his pocket, by his
introduction to Court”, wrote The Examiner of his portraits in 1831. 36 The critics, who earlier
praised his historical compositions and spirited sketches of everyday life, judged his portraits
a failure: “It has transformed him from a first-rate painter of common life, into a second-rate
depicter of highlife.” 37 Wilkie was the favourite artist of George IV, who rushed to appoint
him to the post of Principal Painter in Ordinary to the King, which became vacant upon
Lawrence’s death. Historically, the posts of Principal Painter and President of the Royal
Academy were held by the same person, as was the case with Reynolds, West, and
Lawrence. In terms of seniority, talent, and popularity, Wilkie was considered a natural
successor to Lawrence at the Academy. Yet the King’s move to give Wilkie an official Court
appointment was seen as an attempt to influence his election to the Academy’s Presidency. 38
It produced a backlash among the Academicians, which led to the election to this prestigious
and respected position of another prominent portrait painter of the era, Sir Martin Archer
Shee (1769-1850). His election prompted an angry reaction from the public and the press.
Shee was never considered among the premier painters of the day, and his works
had attracted a strong dose of criticism over the previous decade. In 1824, The Examiner
commented upon his “meretricious gloss of shiny colour”, 39 and in 1825 the same paper
wrote that “his brassy colour has become the chronic disease of his professional mind and
practice”. 40 The Royal Academicians defended their choice of Shee by emphasising his
prowess as a scholar, able arts administrator, and public speaker, but the press remained
unconvinced. “These reasons,” wrote The Morning Chronicle in 1831, “and there be no other,
has always been a stumbling block to us. ‘Few men,’ said Sir Joshua [Reynolds], ‘who were
36
The Examiner, 8 May 1831.
Ibid.
38
“The Royal Academy,” The Morning Chronicle, 29 January 1830, n.p.
39
The Examiner, 4 July 1824.
40
R.H., “Royal Academy Exhibition,” The Examiner, 10 July 1825, 432.
37
18
agreeable talkers, ever turned out great artists. A painter should sew up his mouth.’”41
Although Shee continued his presidency of the Royal Academy for the next twenty years, the
negative attitude set the general tone for the reviews of his portraits in the press. He was
dubbed the President of “the average mediocrity in art,” 42 and The Morning Chronicle
complained that “it offends all our notions of consistency that such a painter should be placed
at the head of any School of Art, and rule over a body of artists.” 43
Another painter who gained prominence during this period was the young Edwin
Landseer. He showed early promise as a portrait specialist, but the general critical
commentary soon emphasised the increasing focus in his paintings on the animal rather than
the human sitter. The Examiner, when reviewing Landseer’s Scene in the Highlands at the
Royal Academy in 1828, representing the Duchess of Bedford and her family, remarked on
the “exclusively broad lights on the horse and dog, [which] give them an importance that
makes it doubtful whether they or the human figures are to be considered principal.” 44 A
hunting group portrait shown at the 1830 Royal Academy was praised for the “excellence in
great degree” 45 in the depiction of dogs and deer, rather then the human protagonists: “Take
away [the Duke] … and you leave a delightful picture.” The Morning Chronicle echoed this
opinion in 1837 while describing Return from Hawking, depicting Lord Francis Egerton and his
family: “The animals (not humans) are quite miraculous representations, and the figures only
inferior to them.” 46
Among other artists whose portraits were frequently singled out for critical analysis
by the press were George Clint (1770-1854), John Linnell
(1792-1882), Henry William
Pickersgill (1782-1875), Thomas Phillips (1770-1845), Ramsey Richard Reinagle (1775-1862),
Richard Rothwell (1800-1868), and John Simpson (1782-1847) to name but a few. Sir John
Watson Gordon (1788-1864) and Sir Francis Grant (1803-1878) - the artists who first came to
prominence at the Scottish Academy of Arts - began exhibiting in London during this era. A
41
43
The Morning Chronicle, 2 May 1831.
44
R.H., “Royal Academy Exhibition,” The Examiner, 22 June 1828, 404.
45
46
42
19
number of women artists also attracted critical praise – such as Margaret Sarah Carpenter
(1793-1872), Christina Robertson (1796-1854), and Fanny Corbeaux (d. 1883). The critical
vox populi generally agreed that they were all capable of capturing a spirited likeness; could
manage with confidence garments and draperies; were able to outline an elegant silhouette
against a landscape or an interior background; enliven the palette with patches of bright
colour; and introduce a dog or a horse to bring in a sensation of movement and energy. Yet a
study of the critical responses of the era – as well as an examination of these portraits today
– shows that the artists could not escape creating uniform, homogenised pastiches of
Lawrence. The facial expressions of their sitters became affectations; the impression of
movement felt staged and forcibly posed; their figures became inert and doll-like; and the
quality of their productions was varied and inconsistent. For example, the portrait of George
IV by Sir David Wilkie was judged inferior in comparison to an earlier portrait of the same
sitter by Lawrence, wanting “the grace and real dignity … and not so strong a resemblance of
the Monarch.” 47 Portraits by Rothwell, who showed early promise as a possible successor to
Lawrence, were seen as feeble imitations, illustrating that “a man of talent’s defects are much
more easily copied than his beauties.” 48 Simpson caused outrage when he agreed to
complete Lawrence’s unfinished portraits: “The first drawings of the figure by Sir Thomas
[would have been preferable] to any twenty finished portraits by Mr Simpson.” 49 Grant was
complimented on his “pleasing likenesses”, but chastised for the “bricky hue” of his flesh
tints, and a “want of skill” in his drawing and brushwork. 50 Charles William Peglar (18031832) was criticised for his inability to flatter his sitters in the following passage:
It is a misfortune for a painter to have a Lady with such a face for a sitter, not
only for his picture to be looked at, but for himself, for so many hours to look
at … The portrait painter that won’t, or can’t flatter, or has not the cunning to
47
“Exhibition at the Royal Academy,” The Examiner, 9 May 1830, 292.
“Exhibition at the Royal Academy,” The Examiner, 8 May 1831, 291.
49
“Suffolk Street Exhibition,” The Morning Chronicle, 26 March 1831, n.p. John Simpson was for
some time Lawrence’s studio assistant as well as a portrait painter in his own right.
50
“Exhibition at the Scottish Academy,” Caledonian Mercury (Edinburgh), 23 April 1832, n.p.
48
20
cover defects, may as well burn his brushes, for things as they are won’t do in
this Limbo of Vanity. 51
Collectively, the artists contributed to the composite character of Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s
fictional Mr Gloss Crimson, a portrait painter and a Royal Academician, who jealously guarded
his place at the Royal Academy; quoted verbatim Reynolds’ Discourses; and treated with
disdain any art beyond the Academy’s walls. His portraits were executed in bright gaudy
colours to attract the most attention at the annual exhibitions; he was obsequious in the face
of aristocracy; and demanded respect for his merits as a portrait painter based solely on the
rank of his sitters: “I have painted four earls this year, and a marchioness; and if that’s not a
high school of painting, tell me what is!” 52 The Morning Chronicle echoed Bulwer-Lytton’s
sentiments, when it categorically stated that “we have not six painters to whose productions
a sane man would give house-room.” 53 Lawrence’s shadow continued to hang heavily over
the Royal Academy exhibitions, and as late as 1836, The Times wistfully wrote: “… in that
truly British art, portraiture, the elegant and sometimes flattering pencil of Lawrence is sorely
missed.” 54
The Patronage of Portraiture under William IV and Queen Adelaide
When the Royal Academy lost its patron, George III, his role was more than amply
filled by his successor, George IV. The new King had been a passionate art collector and
generous patron while still Prince of Wales; in terms of quality and quantity of works acquired
for the British Royal Collection, he remains one the most prolific and important art patrons
among the British monarchs, second only to Charles I. 55 He secured for the Royal Collection
masterpieces of Dutch, Flemish, and French art, which came up on the market following the
French Revolution and disturbances in the Low Countries; and employed dealers and agents
51
Bulwer-Lytton 1840, 517-58.
53
54
“The Exhibition of the Royal Academy,” The Times, 30 April 1836, 5.
55
See Millar 1969, 1:xxxix et passim; and Millar 1977, 129-162.
52
21
to tease out important works from existing private collections. He was also the leading
collector of British art on a scale unprecedented before the eighteenth century. Portrait
painters benefited most from his genuine affection and ability to cultivate friendships, for, as
Millar wrote: “No other English royal collector has ever been at pains to assemble such a
delightful portrait gallery of relations and friends.” 56 Under George IV, the Court once again
became the trendsetter of fashion and the arbiter of taste. The King’s collecting passion and
artistic patronage was emulated by the courtiers and in fashionable circles. They offered
commissions to his favourite artists, and followed the King to the Royal Academy, of which he
assumed the leadership from 1812 in the absence of his incapacitated father.
The contrasting, philistine reputation of his successor, William IV (1765-1837) rests
with his oft repeated references to George IV’s art collection as “nicknackery… damned
expensive taste,” 57 and Thomas Uwins’ popular quote, “King Billy doesn’t know a picture from
a door shutter.” 58 The redecoration of royal residences during his reign involved a routine
removal of paintings by Reynolds, Gainsborough, and Lawrence to the lumber rooms of
Hampton Court; 59 and his decision to cut down the magnificent full-length portrait by
Gainsborough of his three sisters to less than half its size, to better fit it over a door, is
lamented to this day (1784, oil on canvas, HM Queen Elizabeth II).
Upon a closer examination, however, William IV appears to have been well aware of
the propagandist perquisites of official portraiture and the general decorative and
commemorative appeal of fine art. William was not brought up as a Maecenas. He was
enlisted by his father in the Royal Navy at the age of fourteen, and, having crossed the width
and breadth of the British Empire, remains the only member of the Royal family to have
visited the United States while it was still under British control. 60 Owing to his prolonged
absences at sea, even his earliest portraits in the Royal Collection, including the famous
sequence of ovals by Gainsborough, were painted from memory, rather than from life. 61 His
56
Millar 1977, 130.
Whitley 1930, 197.
58
Lennie 1976, 188.
59
Hon. Elenor Stanley to her mother, Lady Mary Stanley, Windsor Castle, 21 March 1845; quoted in
Stanley 1916, 96.
60
Fulford 1933, 83.
61
Millar 1969, 1:34-35.
57
22
older brother, the Prince of Wales, benefited as the heir apparent with a generous Civil List
allowance relatively early in his life, and was able to indulge his passion for collecting from his
teenage years. William, on the other hand, waited until the age of twenty four to be created
Duke of Clarence and St Andrews and receive the associated Parliamentary grant. 62 This
relatively modest civil list allowance was channelled away from art collecting, and was
consumed instead by his amorous dalliances, and by supporting his ten-strong family of
FitzClarences – the issue from his relationship with the talented and fecund actress Dorothy
Jordan (1761-1816). Clarence was one of the three royal brothers (including the Dukes of
Kent and Cambridge), who, upon the death of Princess Charlotte of Wales (1796-1817),
heiress to the throne of England and the only child of George IV, rushed over to Europe in
search of suitable brides to procure a legitimate heir for the British Crown. William brought
back the amiable and retiring Adelaide Prinzessin von Sachsen-Meiningen (1792-1849). The
princess was twenty-seven years his junior, but she proved to be a positive influence on her
sometime unruly and ‘rough around the edges’ husband. Though none of William and
Adelaide’s children survived beyond infancy, Adelaide accepted her life in a somewhat
irregular household, where she played mother to her FitzClarence step-children, and became
a devoted aunt to her niece, Princess Victoria. Clarence’s increased civil list allowance allowed
him to build for his bride, eventually, a suitable new residence, Clarence House, which was
filled with a modest art collection that extended to landscapes, marine battle scenes, and
every conceivable likeness of his late mistress, Dorothy Jordan. 63
Upon succeeding to the throne in 1830, the King and Queen dutifully stepped up to
their official obligations within the sphere of fine arts: “We are happy to find,” wrote The
Times, “that amidst the multifarious matter to which his present Majesty’s attention must be
directed, the fine arts are not omitted.” 64 William IV committed himself to the patronage of
the Royal Academy; attended its annual exhibitions with the Queen and their suite; and
actively supported its much-needed move from the grace-and-favour residence at Somerset
62
Fulford 1933, 94-95.
As Oliver Millar pointed out, William IV “was touchingly anxious … to collect ‘all the pictures of
Mrs. Jordan’, and he probably owned the large [John] Hoppner [c.1758-1810] of her as the Comic
Muse [c.1786, oil on canvas, HM Queen Elizabeth II].” Ibid, 1:xl.
64
The Times, 12 July 1830.
63
23
House to the new quarters in Trafalgar Square in 1837, against the fiscal opposition of the
Parliament. 65 The King obligingly granted the Academy’s President, Sir Martin Archer Shee,
the traditional permission to communicate direct with the sovereign on all matters affecting
the Academy’s business. 66 The Queen also supported his involvement in the arts, and of her
own accord became the patroness of the first exhibition of the Institute of Painters in
Watercolours. 67 She was an amateur watercolorist herself, though her talent was questioned
by Lord Stafford, who observed: “I was rather alarmed at having the book opened at the
Queen’s desire to show me a portrait. Luckily I knew it immediately to be the Duchess of
Cambridge. Some of them are not guessed so easily.” 68
The royal couple’s private collecting tastes continued to encompass mainly landscape
and marine paintings. To these they gradually added a modest quantity of scenes depicting
the official and historical events of their reign, such as the Coronation, dedications, and
official visits. The work on the Waterloo Chamber at Windsor Castle continued under William’s
supervision, and the King commissioned further portraits of British generals and statesmen to
complete his late brother’s vision. 69 Neither of the monarchs shied away from the royal
obligation of sitting for their official portraits. The King’s demands did not extend beyond
capturing a plausible likeness of himself and his Queen, while the main prerequisite of the
latter was “not to be flattered” in her portraits. 70 The couple sat to Sir William Beechey, who
received an official Court position as Principal Portrait Painter to the King, and whose
coronation portraits of the royal couple are confident though formulaic essays in Court
portraiture – the King in full robes (1831, oil on canvas, whereabouts unknown), the Queen in
a blue velvet gown laden with pearls (fig. 2). The Examiner found the portraits “indifferent”
when they were exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1831; 71 and The Times bemoaned the
principal positions afforded to these portraits because of the identities of the sitters rather
65
This building now forms the west wing of the British Museum, the Royal Academy having moved to
its present location at the Burlington House in Picadilly in 1867.
66
Sandby 1862, 1:75-76.
67
Hopkirk 1946, 90.
68
Lord Ronald Gower, Stafford House Letters, quoted in Whitley 1930, 336.
69
Millar 1977, 1:141.
70
Hopkirk 1946, 89.
71
The Examiner, 8 May 1831, 290.
24
than the intrinsic quality of the workmanship. 72 Sir David Wilkie was retained by William IV as
his Principal Painter in Ordinary; and his depiction of the King – standing full length in the
flowing Garter Robes with the Sword of State (fig. 3) – fits almost seamlessly into the
Lawrence-dominated Waterloo Chamber. When the portrait was shown at the Royal Academy
in 1832, it was generally agreed that it was an “altogether a noble production – broad, and
though rich in ornament, without offence to taste, and in delightful harmony.” 73 The press
was less kind about the artist’s portrait of the Queen in blue robes, standing full-length in a
palatial archway (c.1832-1834, oil on canvas, University of Oxford): “His Queen, in our
opinion, is quite a failure in age and expression – a positively ugly picture … lacking the
characteristics of her Majesty in kindly looks and clean clothes.” 74 Shee was also
commissioned to produce portraits of the Royal couple. The new reign did not affect his
position as President of the Royal Academy, though his hopes of being reinstated as the
Principal Painter at Court were dashed by Wilkie’s retaining of that role. His portraits of the
King in Garter Robes (fig. 4) and of the Queen in the ermine-lined red velvet gown (fig. 5)
complete the royal coda of Georgian portraits at Buckingham Palace. When his portraits were
shown at the 1835 Royal Academy exhibition, that of the King attracted rare (for Shee) praise
as to the likeness, management of voluminous draperies, and complex colour scheme that
avoided heaviness and produced “brilliance without gaudiness.” 75 Replicas and copies of
portraits by Beechey, Wilkie, and Shee, standing or seated, full-length or half-length, in oils or
engravings, more than amply represented the monarchs at guilds, corporations, government
ministries and British legations throughout the world. 76
72
“The Royal Academy,” The Times, 6 May 1831, 4.
74
75
76
Apart from Beechey, Wilkie, and Shee, William IV and Adelaide sat numerous times to other artists.
The Court Circular records sittings to Beechey in late 1830 – early 1831. On 18 February 1831 “His
Majesty has been graciously pleased to appoint Mr Bowyer, of Pall-mall, to be his Portrait Painter in
Watercolours”; on 26 March 1831 it was announced that “A portrait of the King, painted by Mr.
Lonsdale for the Prince of Wales’s Lodge of Freemasons, was submitted to Her Majesty on
Wednesday, at the Palace of St James’s, when the Queen expressed her entire approbation of it”. The
Court Circular reported for 5 November 1831, that “His Majesty has given sittings this week to Mr
Simpson for his portrait, which is now in such a forward state that the artist will not require His
Majesty to renew his sittings”, and so forth.
73
25
Despite the formal support offered to the Academy, the steady flow of portrait
commissions, and the modest (though mainly utilitarian) art collecting, the royal couple’s
patronage contrasted greatly with George IV’s unbridled passion for art, commitment to
patronage, and fostering of fresh talent. The ripple effect of diminished royal patronage was
at the epicentre of the changing patterns in the evolution of British portrait painting in the
1830s. Under William IV, the Court was no longer the arbiter of taste; collecting and
patronage ceased to be perceived as fashionable. During his short reign of seven years,
which was plagued by political upheavals and ill-health, William IV appeared to have had no
time or inclination to foster new talent. His Queen, the shy and retiring Adelaide, was an
unlikely candidate for the leadership of the fashionable society. She was ostracised by the
aristocracy for her acceptance of William’s illegitimate children, and branded without
foundation as the doyenne of anti-Reformist opposition. Adelaide retired into the routine of
‘royal progresses’, charity work, and raising nieces and nephews on both sides of her family.
“The Royal penchant for baubles and trifles in George IV not having descended with his
mantle to William IV, make it problematical whether the patronage of the former reign will
soon be restored in its full vigour,” mournfully declared The Morning Chronicle in 1832. 77
If George IV, in his monarch-in-waiting role as Prince of Wales, emerged as the
beacon of fashionable society, setting up his own court, and seeking out the fresh artistic
talent of his generation in opposition to the more established artists patronised by his
parents, no member of the royal family emerged during this period as an alternative
champion of art. By the 1830s, the numerous progeny of George III and Queen Charlotte
were slowly dying out; the dynastic concerns of the Duke of Cumberland, the reduced
circumstances of the Duchess of Kent (Queen Victoria’s mother), and the vice-regal
appointment to Hanover of the Duke of Cambridge forced them to spend extended periods of
time on the Continent.
The aristocracy stayed away from the Court - and from London during the Reformist
upheavals, though it still dominated the upper echelons of the art market. The Sutherlands,
Westminsters, Lansdownes, the Duke of Wellington, Lord Francis Egerton, and Sir Robert Peel
77
“Royal Academy,” The Morning Chronicle, 6 June 1831, n.p.
26
illustrate the aristocratic collecting and patronage patterns of the late Georgian and early
Victorian periods. 78 As Linda Colley pointed out, when the aristocrats “wanted to spend big
money on fine art, it was to the Continent they looked.” 79 They had a marked predilection for
the Old Masters, absorbing the rich artistic bounty that swept into Britain from the troubled
areas of the Continent, such as France, Italy, and the Iberian Peninsula. Continental moderns
were also brought in, such as Gérard, Delaroche and Kaulbach; and the Sutherlands were the
first Britons to buy a Winterhalter in 1837. 80 The country’s native artists were not forgotten:
the aristocracy regularly attended annual exhibitions at the Royal Academy and the British
Institution, and their collections included landscapes by Bonington, Constable, and Turner,
and genre and historical pictures by Eastlake, Etty, Haydon, Landseer, Mulready, and
Wilkie. 81
The aristocratic patronage of British portrait painters was more idiosyncratic. As
Albinson’s study has shown, most aristocratic portraits were commissioned with the inherent
foresight of them becoming heirlooms, or serving as objects of familial, diplomatic, or political
exchange. 82 These portraits were destined for site-specific allocations within public or semipublic spaces in their homes, or specifically orchestrated galleries of family portraits, which
were designed to illustrate the ancientness of their title and aristocratic lineage (fig. 6). Their
collections teemed with ancestral portraits from the hands of Van Dyck, Copley, Reynolds,
Gainsborough, Hoppner, and Romney. Aristocrats offered an extensive patronage to
Lawrence, and sat to him in temporal sequences and various familial configurations. After the
artist’s death, occasional commissions were offered to Wilkie, Landseer, and Grant. Most
society beauties eagerly sat to the fashionable watercolourist Alfred Edward Chalon (17801860), who guaranteed them an aristocratic comme il faut in his portraits, or to the popular
miniaturist Sir William Ross (1794-1860), who excelled in this intimate and quintessentially
78
Cf. Mrs [Anna] Jameson, Companion to the Most Celebrated Private Galleries of Art in London,
(London: Saunders and Otley, 1844); Dr. Gustav Friedrich Waagen, Works of Art and Artists in
England (London: John Murray, 1838); and Dr. Gustav Friedrich Waagen, Treasures of Art in Great
Britain (London: John Murray, 1854-57).
79
Colley 1992, 174.
80
The Decameron (1837, oil on canvas, Private Collection). See Barilo von Reisberg 2007, 24.
81
Jameson 1844, xxxii-iii et passim.
82
Albinson 2004, 34-36 et passim.
27
British branch of art. 83 However, in the absence of artists whose portraits would have fitted
within the existing, well-developed and “coherent iconography of self-representation,” 84 the
upper classes desisted from portrait commissions during this time. The Morning Chronicle,
observing the relative absence of aristocratic portraits at the 1834 Royal Academy exhibition,
remarked upon it as the ‘strike of the Peerage’. 85 Only the Duke of Wellington seemed to
have been indiscriminate in acquiescing to sitting requests at the time, accepting it as a part
and parcel of his military fame at the battle of Waterloo and recent prominence on the
political stage. The Duke’s portraits became the regular staple of Academy exhibitions: “His
Grace, by the way, is quite a pluralist in the present exhibition – he occupies nearly as many
places on the walls of the Academy as he held offices in the State during the Ministerial
interregnum of November last.” 86 The critics upheld the supremacy of Lawrence’s portraits of
the Duke above all others. His portrait by Phillips at the 1827 Royal Academy exhibition was
described as “a sad affair: it must, we think, have been painted after [the Duke’s]
resignation”; 87 by Wilkie in 1834 as “… bad, so smeary, and such a jumble”; 88 and
Pickersgill’s effort in 1835 as “missing the likeness and proper stature” of the Iron Duke. 89
From the late Georgian period, and especially under William IV, the baton of art
patronage was gradually passing to the new emerging force in the British class system – the
middle classes, whose position in the political arena and the economic field was further
strengthened by the Reform Act of 1832. 90 A rising and self-confident bourgeoisie became
the foremost patron of art and artists, and the new source of the insatiable market for the
consumption of portraiture within the private sector. At the same time the Municipal Act of
83
This observation of aristocratic patronage of Chalon and Ross is based on exhibition reviews of the
1830s and 1840s, the author’s sightings of portrait watercolours and miniatures in the collections of the
National Portrait Gallery, Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Wallace Collection in London in April
2007, as well as on the widespread availability of numerous engravings and lithographs after Chalon
and Ross’s portraits of society ‘beauties’ on the art market from the 1830s to the present day, including
engravings after Chalon’s portraits of the Duchess of Sutherland and Lady Clementina Child-Villiers,
both c.1830, which are in the author’s collection.
84
Albinson 2004, 36.
85
86
87
“The Royal Academy,” The Times, 11 May 1827, 5.
88
89
90
See Dianne Sachko Macleod, Art and the Victorian Middle Class: Money and the Making of Cultural
Identity (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
28
1835 created a niche for official portraits of non-royal and non-aristocratic patrons within the
public arena. “We may here remark,” observed The Morning Chronicle, “that the English
Municipal Act … has afforded work for artists; and divers mayors, aldermen, and corporate
officers figure conspicuously in the rooms in furred robes and gold chains, their portraits
having been painted for the purpose of adorning the town halls of Bristol, Leeds, & c.” 91 Yet
the mass consumption of the era insisted on comprehensible narratives and simple emotions;
uncomplicated portraits that were easy to read. 92 Though The Morning Chronicle insisted that
“a mere likeness is the lower grade of merit in a [portrait] artist,” most middle-class art
patrons of the era lacked the aesthetic knowledge and thorough appreciation of portraiture as
a genre, and failed to demand anything beyond verisimilitude from the artist. 93 The
development of photography and the advent of the carte de visite soon eliminated the bulk of
the middle- and lower-middle-class market for painted portraits. 94
Portraiture is dependent upon patronage (as opposed to general art collecting) to a
larger extent than landscape or genre painting. It is inextricably bound with the particular
individual it depicts, and therefore does not have the wider appeal of other genres. Only a
skilled, gifted painter can turn a mere likeness into a timeless image of universal appeal. On
the other hand, sophisticated patronage has the potential to encourage and guide a portrait
painter to the path of greatness. The era of William IV did not provide such an environment.
As William’s seven-year reign drew to a close, the king did not deviate from his limited
patterns of patronage. He continued to rely on the surviving artists of the Georgian era
notwithstanding their faults and the lack of critical approval for the portraits they produced.
Beechey, Wilkie, and Shee delivered at least one official likeness every two years. Replicas
and copies of their portraits – as well as more obscure examples by Bowyer, Lonsdale, and
Simpson – more than amply represented the royal couple at guilds, corporations, government
ministries, and British legations throughout the world. No alternative member of the Royal
91
Steegman 1968, 184.
93
94
Cf. Lenman 1997, 71, on the parallel developments in Germany’s portrait market.
92
29
Family emerged to re-invigorate art collecting among fashionable society. The market for
aristocratic portraits was still oversaturated with Lawrence’s portraits, and its iconographic
requirements remained largely sated throughout the 1830s. The majority of the moneyed
middle-class lacked the wherewithal to demand from their portraitists anything beyond a
reasonable likeness. Unlike the cosmopolitan aristocracy, they were also intensely patriotic in
their collecting and patronage patterns. Landscape and genre painting flourished, as did the
popular and quintessentially English mediums of watercolour and miniature painting. Yet no
artist of the period was able to successfully cross into portraiture from other genres; nor
could watercolorists and miniaturists of the era compete successfully in the realm of official
large-scale oil painting. Of the existing portrait artists, none were capable to rival or equal the
late Sir Thomas Lawrence; no artist emerged to decisively take portraiture in a new direction.
30
CHAPTER II
EARLY OFFICIAL PORTRAITS OF QUEEN VICTORIA AND PRINCE ALBERT,
1837 - 1842
When Queen Victoria succeeded to the British throne on 20 June 1837 upon the
death of her uncle, King William IV, the diarist Charles Greville (1794-1865) remarked at the
time: “It is clear enough that she had long been silently preparing herself, and had been
prepared by those about her (and very properly) for the situation to which she was
destined.” 1 Albeit barely eighteen, Victoria stepped up to her role with a surprising ease and
self-assurance. Her accession to the throne was no unanticipated incident. With the deaths of
William and Adelaide’s infant daughter in 1821, and of the Duke of York in 1827, Princess
Victoria’s succession to the throne became a publicly acknowledged fait accompli. 2 Victoria
herself became aware of her likely destiny at the age of ten in a well-documented incident,
when in March of 1829 she came across the genealogical table of the British royal family.
Realising how close she was to the Throne, she famously uttered: “I will be good.”3 Within
the first months of her reign, the Queen had astonished many with her maturity, confidence,
and self-control, “as if she had been on the throne six years instead of six days,” reported
Greville. 4 The young Victoria showed a firm grasp of politics, economics, and foreign policy;
of court precedence, social etiquette, and royal protocol. Furthermore, Victoria was acutely
aware of her own regal status, her distinctive position within British society, and of the
associated requirement of strategically managing the (self)representation of her sovereign
body. While the popular press wasted no time in coming up with plausible likenesses of the
Queen, the Palace firmly proceeded with the commissioning of professionally executed and
officially-sanctioned portraits of the young monarch.
1
Greville 1885, 1:20.
Weintraub 1987, 61.
3
Ibid., 66.
4
Greville 1885, 1:2.
2
31
What guided the Queen’s aesthetic choices, and what is known of her knowledge of
the art in general, and of portraiture in particular? Victoria’s biographers suggest that by
1837, Victoria’s artistic tastes had not yet been formed. 5 However, as a princess of the ‘Blood
Royal’, she grew up surrounded by the masterpieces of the Royal Collection. Her curriculum
included painting and drawing; she frequently received works of art as gifts, and used her
modest allowance to purchase art works for her own budding collection. 6 Her regular
attendances of exhibitions at the Royal Academy and British Institution, which were reported
in the media, raised her awareness of contemporary art and artists. Her visits to aristocratic
country estates – “royal progresses” – would have exposed the young princess to the private
art treasures of Britain. As the demand for portraits of Britain’s future sovereign were high,
Victoria would have been familiar with the process of sitting for a portrait from her childhood.
Johann Fischer (1786-1875), William Fowler (1761-1832), and Richard Westall (1765-1836)
provided some of the most popular early images of the child princess, and Victoria was also
painted by artists working for her uncles, George IV and William IV. The portrait of the
princess with her mother by William Beechey (fig. 7), for example, became quite popular,
having been shown at the Royal Academy and popularised through miniatures and prints. 7 It
would be therefore fair to argue that Queen Victoria, at the time of her accession, would have
had a general knowledge of the fine arts that was superior to an average upper-class
teenager of her era.
The aesthetic awareness of Princess Victoria – and the burgeoning iconography
surrounding her – was greatly enhanced by the efforts of her mother, the formidable and
overprotective Victoria, Duchess of Kent (1786-1861) (fig. 8). 8 A small court grew up around
Kensington Palace, where the Duchess had lived with her daughter. Though she was fonder
of literature and the theatre, fine arts were not forgotten. The Duchess took over the
patronage of George Hayter (1792-1871), who was the drawing master of her late sister-inlaw, Princess Charlotte of Wales (1796-1817), and visited his studio with Victoria, where the
5
Cf. Millar 1992, 1:xiii-xiv.
Ibid.
7
Cf. Millar 1969, 1:9-10.
8
See Appendix I, n. 8.
6
32
Princess admired many “faithful likenesses” on display. 9 Hayter created a youthful portrait of
the Duchess with her daughter (fig. 9), which was more flattering than the earlier
representation by Beechey. His portrait of Princess Victoria at Windsor Castle, with the globe
and books on the right to indicate the Princess’s studious preparations for her future role as
sovereign, and with flowers and her favourite dog Dash on the left as an allegory of her
youth and playfulness, came to be regarded as one of the most important representations of
the adolescent princess (fig. 10). 10 Though both paintings were eventually sent to the
Duchess’s brother, Leopold I, King of the Belgians (1790-1865), engravings after these
portraits became popular throughout Britain. 11 Judging by the Duchess of Kent’s own
portraits of the 1830s, she also sat to the fashionable watercolourist Alfred Chalon and the
popular miniaturist, William Ross; while Edwin Landseer received commissions from the
Duchess to paint Princess Victoria’s pets from the early 1830s. 12 These artists were to play an
important part in Queen Victoria’s early iconography, as will be demonstrated below.
Winslow Ames and Sir Oliver Millar, twentieth-century scholars of the Britain’s Royal
patronage of the arts, have also identified the main principles which guided the Queen’s
aesthetic choices. Ames focused on Queen Victoria’s penchant for forming passionate
attachments to people and objects. “If we made a scale of degrees of attachments”, writes
Ames, “with a Gandhian non-attachment on one end, Queen Victoria would be found at
another end. It is probably fair to say that to her an object, however intrinsically valuable,
had extrinsic value in direct proportion to its association as a souvenir or reminder.” 13 In the
age predating photography, portraits were the only means by which the Queen could satisfy
her craving to surround herself with representations of her relatives, or those she liked and
admired, living or dead. It can be argued that portrait artists, therefore, became for the
Queen not only the depictors of her loved ones, but also important conduits between the
9
Millar 1992, 1:95.
“The Princess Victoria,” The Examiner, 24 October 1830, 343.
11
Both paintings are still in the Belgian Royal Collection; preparatory drawings are at the Royal
Library, Windsor Castle. See Millar 1995, 1:449.
12
Millar 1992, 1:xxi.
13
Ames 1968, 5.
10
33
portrait and the portrayed. Through their very association with the sitter, portraitists became
surrogate recipients of the Queen’s affection and devotion.
Millar, in his detailed examination of Queen Victoria’s acquisitions for the Royal
Collection, observed that the likeness was considered by Queen Victoria to be among the
most essential attributes in a painting, which “to the end of her life, she not unnaturally
looked for in a portrait or in pictures of a royal occasion.” 14 Once a satisfactory likeness was
obtained, the portrait was copied ad infinitum and was placed throughout the royal
residencies, so that the Queen was never far from the face of a loved one. Sometimes,
portraits were worked into carefully selected and planned historical and genealogical displays
and sequences. 15 Miniatures and prints after portraits were given away as presents or
incorporated into pieces of wearable jewellery, which can be seen in numerous depictions of
the Queen and her milieu. The bracelets with miniature portraits of the Queen, for example,
were especially popular as royal presents to ladies-in-waiting: “It was so nice of her [the
Queen] to give them herself instead of sending them by a dresser,” recollected Eleanor
Stanley (1821-1903) in 1844. 16
Therefore, Queen Victoria’s penchant for forming passionate attachments, and the
aesthetic emphasis she placed upon the mimetic qualities of portraiture, informed her
methodology for selecting her portraitists. The painters who, in Victoria’s opinion, delivered
the best likenesses naturally stood the highest in the Queen’s regard. Her devotion to these
artists explains why Queen Victoria paid no heed at the time of her accession in 1837 to
criticisms levelled against earlier portraits by Wilkie, Chalon, or Shee; or to the rumours about
the scandalous private life of George Hayter; or Edwin Landseer’s frequent failures to
complete his pictures. From July 1837 onwards, the list of portrait painters who were
“graciously honoured with a sitting” by Her Majesty, 17 became a veritable roll-call of artists
who were already closely associated with her family and the intimate circle of courtiers
14
Millar 1992, 1:xiii.
Ibid., 1:xxvii-xxxi.
16
Stanley 1916, 76-77.
17
The phrase is frequently used throughout by the Court Circular to denote the Queen’s sitting for a
portrait. Cf. “Court Circular,” The Times, 28 September 1837, 2.
15
34
through portrait commissions or a wider patronage, and who had previously succeeded in
delivering the best likenesses of her loved ones.
Sir David Wilkie was retained by Queen Victoria in the post of Principal Painter in
Ordinary, which had been granted to him by George IV back in 1830. 18 He was summoned to
Brighton in October 1837 to begin his work on an official state portrait. Wilkie depicted the
young Queen standing full-length on a palatial terrace, wearing the State Diadem and heavy
ermine-lined Robes of State (fig. 11). Her gloved left hand points to the Crown and Sceptre
resting on a red velvet cushion. The heavy columns on the right, billowing curtains to the left,
and a turbulent cloudscape in the background echo royal portraits by Van Dyck, as well as
Wilkie’s own earlier full-length portrait of Queen Adelaide (c. 1832-38, oil on canvas,
University of Oxford). However, despite these prerequisite trappings of official portraiture, the
painting failed lamentably in the eyes of the Queen and her contemporaries in terms of
likeness and the sense of ceremonial grandeur. 19 Wilkie’s adoption of a looser painting
technique failed to capture the Queen’s features; her physiognomy appears caricatured.
Moreover, his experimentation with pigment additives resulted in an overall muddy tonality of
the palette. Although the portrait may appear today as an important interpretation of Queen
Victoria through the prism of Wilkie’s later style in particular and of official portraiture in
general, it attracted virulent criticism at the Royal Academy, where the artist exhibited the
work in spite of its earlier censure by the Queen and her courtiers. The Examiner found the
picture “execrable”, 20 while Haydon, writing a year later in The Morning Chronicle, described
the painting as the foremost example of Wilkie’s failure in the genre of portraiture: “His
portrait of the Queen … must have opened his own eyes at last to his long, vain, and
struggling delusion.” 21
The position of Sir Martin Archer Shee as President of the Royal Academy was also
not affected by the change of the head of state. The Queen did not hesitate to grant the
18
See ante.
Millar 1992, 1:xvii.
20
“Fine Arts,” The Examiner, 3 May 1840, 278.
21
B.R. Haydon, “Wilkie,” The Morning Chronicle, 14 June 1841, n.p.
19
35
artist permission to paint her portrait for the Royal Academy’s collection (fig. 12). 22 Shee
chose an indoor setting, portraying the Queen standing on a dais near the throne. Her fulllength figure mirrors Wilkie’s portrait in relation to the contrapposto stance, the ermine-edged
ceremonial robes with a tasselled tunic, and the positioning of the hands. While the portrait
succeeds in delivering a stronger sense of royal grandeur than Wilkie’s picture, the Queen’s
voluminous robes overwhelm her. The unfortunate drawing of the head and shoulders give
Victoria an appearance of a person whose neck has been dislocated from dragging the heavy
robes around. Queen Victoria considered the portrait “monstrous,” 23 and it received further
negative critical reviews when it was shown at the Royal Academy in 1843. The portrait was
dismissed as an unsatisfactory likeness of the Queen; her countenance “undignified,” her feet
“monstrously large,” and the bright pigments favoured by the artist as “excessively mean and
vulgar.” 24 The painting duly took its place in the collection of the Royal Academy next to the
portraits of King William IV and Queen Adelaide by the same artist. 25 Given the absence of
further works by Shee in the Royal Collection after this date, it does not appear that he was
granted another Palace commission.
Of the portrait painters patronised by the Duchess of Kent, George Hayter was the
Queen’s favourite. Shortly after her accession, the Queen created the artist Her Majesty’s
Painter of History and Portraits. 26 In October 1837, Victoria commissioned from Hayter two
portraits, which, judging from the proliferation of their copies and prints, remained among
the most important official likenesses of this early period. In both portraits Hayter chose to
depict the monarch seated. It disguised her diminutive stature, and emphasised her regal
precedence: the sovereign was the only person in the realm to be seated while others
remained standing. In the first portrait, heavy state robes were discarded in favour of a
ceremonial cloak and flowing tunic, which outlined the contours of her body and emphasised
Victoria’s youth (fig. 13). According to Millar, the portrait served as a prototype for versions
and copies which were widely distributed as diplomatic gifts and placed throughout British
22
Sandby 1862, 119.
Millar 1992, 1:xvii.
24
“Exhibition at the Royal Academy,” The Morning Chronicle, 11 May 1843, n.p.
25
Sandby 1862, 119.
26
“The Court Circular,” The Times, 16 August 1837, 5.
23
36
legations abroad. 27 This assists us with the semiotic reading of the portrait as a narrative
representation of Queen Victoria for foreign audiences: the Queen is wearing the Crown and
holding the Sceptre illustrating her role as the sovereign, while the upward glance
emphasises her dual position as the Head of State and the Head of the Anglican Church. The
heraldic presence of the carved British lion on the gilded chair and of the national symbols of
rose, thistle, and shamrock on her sash symbolise the Queen as Britannia incarnate.
The second portrait is a more prosaic essay in official portraiture, depicting the
Queen seated on the throne in the House of Lords (fig. 14). 28 The ceremonial cloak and tunic
are replaced with more traditional ermine-lined robes, which the Queen wore to the opening
of the first Parliament of her reign. 29 The regalia is placed to the left, the State Diadem is
worn; the left hand is gloved. The Queen does not avert her eyes, but faces her subjects with
a benign munificence. Both portraits were judged by the Queen’s immediate circle a success
with regard to the likeness and the overall design of the painting. The Queen’s half-sister,
Feodora Fürstin zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg (1807-1872), for example, especially singled out
the upward glance in the first portrait, which she found as being “so like.” 30 When the second
portrait was placed on public display at Colnaghi’s in February 1838 to encourage the print
subscription, the reviewers complemented the painter on the composition, the drawing of the
figure, the depth of chiaroscuro, and the overall sense of grandeur. The only criticism was
levelled at the expression of the Queen’s face in the portrait, which was judged “too grave,
formal, and determined”, at odds with the “open, lively, and ingenuous character” of the
young Queen; 31 or, in the words of Figaro, “ill-tempered and surly, … an obstinate little miss,
who does not like being thwarted in anything.” 32
Hayter’s fall from royal favour was not caused by any lack in his artistic abilities nor
by his saccharine obsequiousness towards the Royal Family. It was chiefly due to what was
euphemistically referred to as ‘irregularities’ in his private life, which involved illegitimate
27
Millar 1992, 1:106.
See “Mr Hayter’s Portrait of the Queen,” The Examiner, 25 February 1838, 124; and “Royal
Academy,” The Morning Chronicle, 5 May 1838, n.p.
29
“Fashionable Intelligence,” John Bull, 11 February 1838, 71.
30
Miller 1992, 1:xvii.
31
The Examiner, 25 February 1838, 124.
32
“The Sapient Queen,” Figaro in London, 27 July 1839, n.p.
28
37
children, a scandalous separation, and his mistress’s suicide attempt. 33 His unconventional
domestic arrangements blackballed him from the Royal Academy. Queen Victoria remained
impervious to the public opinion of Hayter’s character. She openly gossiped with Lord
Melbourne about Hayter’s philandering, and employed his illegitimate son Angelo in the
production of drawings and studies for several royal commissions. 34 She knighted the artist in
1841, and upon Wilkie’s death, promoted Hayter to the latter’s post of Principal Painter in
Ordinary. 35 The gradual cessation of Hayter’s relationship with the Royal Family around 18421843 seems to have come from the intervention of the morally conservative Prince Albert,
and Hayter was succeeded in all but the official title by Winterhalter, who began to execute
his first commissions at the time. Hayter’s departure from Court did not diminish the
favourable opinion of his works held by Queen Victoria. She continued ordering versions and
replicas of his portraits, and one of them was commissioned by the Queen as a gift to the
National Portrait Gallery as late as 1900. 36
Another early favourite of the Queen and Duchess of Kent was Edwin Landseer, who
had stood high in their regard since the early 1830s. Yet his first commissioned portrait of
Queen Victoria, begun in January 1838, was never completed (fig. 15). It was to show the
Queen riding out of Windsor Castle on her favourite white stallion, Leopold, wearing period
dress, surrounded by dogs, and followed by mounted sentries. The composition of Landseer’s
portrait was indebted to Van Dyck’s Charles I with M. de St Antoine (1633, oil on canvas, HM
Queen Elizabeth II), which the artist would have seen in the Royal Collection. According to
Ormond, Landseer, who was notoriously insecure about his ability to capture a successful
resemblance, convinced himself that a likeness was more easily achieved when it was a part
of a genre scene or a quasi-historical composition. 37 Landseer’s drawings and watercolours,
as well as a beautiful oil sketch of the Queen, painted in August 1839 (fig. 16), show that the
artist was capable of surprisingly good, sharp likenesses. Transferred onto larger canvasses,
33
Henry Matthew and Brian Harrison, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: University
Press, 2004), 26:71.
34
Millar 1995, 1:447-8.
35
Millar 1992, 1:96.
36
Perry 2006, 55-57.
37
Ormond 1981, 123.
38
however, they frequently became shapeless mounds of caked paint. He never failed as
dismally as with portraits of the very people he was most anxious to please – his patrons in
the highest station of life. His inability to finish a portrait sent the artist into bouts of
alcoholism and depression, and upon his death in 1873 the Queen’s ‘riding-out portrait’ was
found in his studio among other unfinished portraits, covered with blankets and faced against
the wall. 38 Only the accompanying dogs and the horse were completed with his usual vigour.
As Lennie pointed out, the pet portraiture could have had the artist comfortably employed for
the rest of his life: “If the child’s likeness fell short of perfection the pet’s seldom did.”39
Landseer remained unrivalled in the province of game and animalier pictures, with his
subjects set in quintessentially British landscapes. His genre paintings were infallibly judged
“quite unequalled for their excellence in this department of art.” 40 Therefore, Landseer’s
unfailing output of lively and animated portraits of royal dogs, monkeys, and parakeets,
which the Queen and Prince commissioned and exchanged as gifts, allowed him to retain the
royal favour and ensured continuous royal patronage. 41
Alfred Chalon and William Ross should be mentioned albeit briefly as they also
produced early important portraits of Queen Victoria. Her attraction to their works is easy to
comprehend. The artists were renowned for their elegant miniatures and watercolours of late
Georgian and early Victorian ladies. They had painted, among others, the Duchess of Kent
and Fürstin zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg (fig. 17), as well as a number of the Queen’s ladies,
including her Mistress of the Robes (i.e. the chief lady-in-waiting), the Duchess of Sutherland
(1806-1868), who became one of Victoria’s intimate friends (fig. 18). However, the absence
of large-scale portraits in their oeuvre points to the conclusion that neither of these artists
competed in the realm of life-size official or state portraiture. Their portraits of Queen Victoria
were popularised through engravings and prints, which were widely available on the art
market and reproduced in fashionable ladies’ publications such as La Belle Assemblée, The
38
Millar 1992, 1:138.
Lennie 1976, 57-58.
40
41
Landseer had completed, after many years of trials and tribulations, two early important group
portrait compositions for Queen Victoria, Windsor Castle in Modern Times (1842-45, oil on canvas,
HM Queen Elizabeth II), and Queen Victoria and Prince Albert at the Bal Costumé of 12 May 1842
(1842-47, oil on canvas, HM Queen Elizabeth II), which will be discussed in the next chapter.
39
39
Keepsake, and the annual Books of Beauty (figs 19 and 20). 42 Chalon’s full-length
watercolour portrait of the Queen (fig. 21), which was given by Victoria to her uncle, the King
of the Belgians, was famously adapted for the illustration on postage stamps (fig. 22), 43 while
the Queen’s official lithographer, the respected graphic artist Richard James Lane (18001872), ensured that Chalon’s portrait was widely disseminated through engravings and prints.
Late in 1839, gossip columns of British newspapers and society magazines were enlivened by
a rumour that one such engraving was sent to the Queen’s cousin, Albert Prinz von SachsenCoburg und Gotha (1819-1861), who fell in love with Victoria at first sight of the above
mentioned portrait. 44 While the story is interesting as an illustration of the traditional
exchange of portraits as a substitute for courtship, and of the role portraiture played in
matrimonial matchmaking among the upper echelons of Europe, the reality of the budding
relationship was slightly more prosaic.
Prince Albert was consciously groomed over a period of years by the Duchess of Kent,
King Leopold of the Belgians, and their éminence grise, Christian Friedrich Freiherr von
Stockmar (1787-1863), to become the future consort of Queen Victoria. His upbringing and
education were carefully supervised, and he was intentionally distanced from the dissolute
court of his parents. He was enrolled into the prestigious University of Bonn, and became well
versed in politics, science, and the arts; studies in English language, history, and politics were
strategically not omitted. The family ties between Coburg and London provided a pretext for
the first meeting between the two cousins in May 1836, but the sixteen-year-old Princess
Victoria remained noncommittal about her feelings towards Albert. However, when the
second visit was arranged for October 1839, she was smitten by the Prince, whom she found
“so excessively handsome, such beautiful blue eyes, an exquisite nose, and such pretty
mouth… a beautiful figure, broad in the shoulders and a fine waist; my heart is quite
going.” 45 On 15 October 1839, Victoria summoned Albert to a private audience, and (as
42
Cf. “Mr Moon’s Engraving of Chalon’s Portraits of Her Majesty,” The Court Magazine, January
1839, 92.
43
“The Court Circular,” The Times, 29 January 1839, 5, and Millar 1995, 1:447-8.
44
Reported in a number of publications: cf. “The Queen and Prince Albert,” Freeman’s Journal
(Dublin), 30 Aug 1839, n.p.
45
Weintraub 1987, 128-129.
40
required by the royal protocol) proposed her hand in marriage: “Oh! How I adore and love
him […] how I will strive to make him feel as little as possible the great sacrifice he has
made,” she confided in her diary later that same evening. 46 In the history of arranged
marriages, theirs would prove to be a successful one.
The announcement of royal nuptials, scheduled for 10 February 1840, resulted in the
public demand for portraits of Prince Albert for official and illustrative purposes. Once again,
the popular media wasted no time in coming up with the credible image of the Prince:
Colburn’s New Monthly Magazine was among the first publications to furnish its purchasers
with a “desirable memorial of the future husband of our Queen,” as early as December
1839. 47 A month later, in January of 1840, Bell’s Life stated that London was inundated with
portraits of Prince Albert, 48 and several newspapers observed “the elite of the fashionable
world” crowding the rooms of the print sellers Colnaghi’s in Cockspur Street and Hodgsons &
Graves in Pall-Mall to view these recent portraits, and to acquire engravings after them. 49
Some of the most prominent of these were portraits by William Ross (figs. 22 and 23), Alfred
Chalon (fig. 24), and George Patten (1801-1865), who were already under the Queen’s
patronage. 50 Patten followed Albert to Coburg, where the Prince had returned to await the
wedding preparations, and painted a sympathetic three-quarter-length portrait of the
bridegroom. 51 It was allegedly produced with Albert’s collaboration, who is said to have
painted the crown and arms of the Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha family in the lower right-hand
corner of the picture (fig. 25). 52 The Queen expressed a general satisfaction with the portrait,
though she admitted in private that Albert’s eyes “look as if they were dazzled by a glare of
light.” 53 When the portrait was shown at the Royal Academy in 1840, however, the art critics
found the overall quality as rushed and lacking in finish. 54
46
Ibid.
“Portrait of Prince Albert,” The Morning Chronicle, 30 November 1839, n.p.
48
“Portraits of Prince Albert,” Bell’s Life, 26 January 1840, 17.
49
C.f. “Chit-Chat,” The Era, 26 Jan 1840, 215; and “Portraits of Prince Albert,” Bell’s Life, 26 January
1840, 17.
50
I am grateful to the Earl and Countess of Clancarty for bringing Prince Albert’s portrait by Alfred
Chalon (fig. 24) to my attention.
51
“The Court Circular,” The Times, 18 Nov 1839, 4.
52
53
Millar 1992, 1:200-201.
54
“The Royal Academy Exhibition,” The Art Union, May 1840, 76.
47
41
The first set of official pendant portraits of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert was
entrusted to John Partridge (1790-1872). Partridge was a follower of Phillips, though his style
of painting was more stolid and prosaic. He stopped exhibiting at the Royal Academy after a
quarrel with one of the Academicians, but nevertheless continued to carry on a modestly
successful practice as a portrait painter throughout the 1830s and 1840s. 55 Among his sitters
was Baron von Stockmar, who was painted by Partridge in 1838 (oil on canvas, HM Queen
Elizabeth II). It was probably also Stockmar who recommended the artist to the Queen for
the royal portraits, sittings for which were recorded between October 1840 and March
1841. 56 Partridge created a simple composition for Victoria, placing her in an indoor setting,
wearing a black evening gown with the ribbon of the Garter (fig. 26). She is standing next to
a table, covered with a red velvet cloth, with an elaborate inkstand, stationary, and seals,
which are indicative of the Queen’s performance of her official duties. For Albert, Partridge
chose an outdoor setting, and depicted the Prince in a dashing red and gold Hussar’s uniform,
with Windsor Castle looming large in the background (fig. 26a). The royal commissions were
too hard to ignore even for the Royal Academy. The portraits were accepted by the
institution, and included in its 1841 exhibition. They had a lukewarm reception. The portrait
of the Queen was not judged to be a favourable likeness, and the general consensus was that
the draperies and accessories received a superior treatment to the figure of the Queen:
“Nothing can be finer and more expressive than the finish Mr Partridge gives to inanimate
objects.” 57 The portrait of the Prince was found to be an ‘inferior production,’ 58 and when a
version of the portrait, commissioned for the Duchess of Kent, was exhibited at the Royal
Academy the following year, in 1842, it was uniformly condemned for its flatness and lack of
chiaroscuro. 59 Though Partridge was retained in the royal service and received an official
appointment of Portrait Painter Extraordinary to Prince Albert, 60 apart from the large-scale
55
Ormond 1967, 397.
“The Queen’s Gazette,” The Court Magazine, December 1840, 485.
57
58
“The Royal Academy Exhibition,” The Art Union, May 1841, 76.
59
60
Cf. “The Court Circular,” The Times, 25 July 1842, 7.
56
42
group composition of Prince Albert with Fine Art Commissioners (1846-53, oil on canvas,
National Portrait Gallery, London), no further royal commissions have been recorded.
“There Must be a Patron Portrait”…
The portraits discussed above are but a selection of better-known early
representations of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. To this we may add less well known
examples, which were commissioned on behalf of public institutions in Britain and abroad,
and often carried out by the artists of their choice. These included portraits by Henry Edward
Dawe (1790-1848), William Fowler (1796-1880), Sir Francis Grant (1803-1878), James
Lonsdale (1777-1839), and Frederick Newenham (1807-1859); a successful but sole likeness
of the Queen by the British-born American portraitist Thomas Sully (1783-1872); 61 and a
dashing figure of Prince Albert by John Lucas (1807-1874) within an otherwise awkward
composition, which was famously lampooned by Punch (figs. 27 and 28). Despite the
seeming plethora of early portraits of the monarch and her husband, the satisfactory
likenesses were still missing, a want that was acknowledged personally and publicly. The
Examiner sarcastically congratulated the Academy in 1839 on the ‘variety’ of portraits in its
exhibition: “It contained eight or ten portraits of the Queen, not one of which in the slightest
degree resembled each other.” 62 The World of Fashion suggested that the Queen must be
“greatly amused at the trash” purporting to be her likenesses. 63 The Figaro commiserated
with the Queen, paraphrasing Shakespeare and saying that one of the burdens upon the
head that wears the crown is “having oneself caricatured by every ass who can handle a
pencil or a paint brush.” 64 In 1840, The Satirist even suggested that Prince Albert should try
his hand at making a portrait of the Queen (hinting at the conjugal bliss of the royal couple,
61
The literature on this portrait is extensive: see, for example, Carrie Rebora Barratt, Queen Victoria
and Thomas Sully (Princeton: University Press, 2000).
62
“Fine Arts Exhibition,” The Examiner, 2 June 1839, 343.
63
“Fine Arts,” The World of Fashion, May 1838, 59.
64
“What is the Queen Like?” Figaro in London, 16 June 1838, n.p.
43
the paper noted that Victoria would not be sitting to the Prince “in the usual way”, but would
“assume the character of a lay figure”). 65
The observation made by The Times almost a decade before, when it remarked upon
indifferent and mediocre portraits of William IV and Queen Adelaide on display at the Royal
Academy, could equally apply to the early official representations of Queen Victoria and
Prince Albert, when they appeared in the public domain:
Really kings should be careful whom they sit to, for as they cannot be seen by all
their subjects, a simple and dignified representation would be more likely to
produce respect in the remote parts of the empire. This deserves attention, as
artists are fond of extending their fame by means of engraving. 66
The Times reviewer’s reference to the practice of reproducing official portraits
through replicas, copies and prints is important. The exhibition of royal portraits at the
Academy was a visual signifier of the highest patronage bestowed upon the artist, which
meant a subsequent boost to the artist’s reputation and further influx of portrait
commissions. The copyists and printmakers also capitalised on the celebrity status of the
Royal Family: the proliferation of advertisements in the print media indicates that dealing in
royal portraits was a brisk trade on every level of the art market. 67 The active role played by
the British Royal Family in the distribution and promotion of their own images also cannot be
ignored. 68 Their portraits were multiplied ad infinitum to be placed throughout their town and
country residences, given to relatives and friends, and set into pieces of wearable jewellery.
The presence of royal portraits in the homes of the aristocracy and the upper classes signified
royal favour; their presence in clubs and institutions indicated royal patronage. Portraits of
the sovereigns were exchanged as diplomatic gifts with other heads of state, and sent to
British embassies and legations abroad. Reproductions of these portraits through the
65
“Chit-Chat,” The Satirist, 12 April 1840, 118.
“Royal Academy Exhibition,” The Times, 12 July 1830, 5.
67
This observation is based on the examination of the classified sections of British newspapers from
the 1830s to the 1860s. See also Plunkett 2003, passim.
68
On the subject of distribution of the royal images, see also Plunkett 2003, passim.
66
44
relatively affordable medium of engraving and lithography also meant that the images of the
British sovereigns and their families were within the reach of the ordinary population.
Linda Colley has observed that the British Royal Family depended upon the city
metropolis for social interaction and entertainment to a much larger degree then their
autocratic Continental counterparts in Paris, Vienna, or St Petersburg. The governmental
control of the royal purse strings meant that the royal family “lacked the human or spatial
resources to forge a discrete court culture or generate all of its own large-scale
entertainments.” 69 Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were observed on their visits to theatres
and art exhibitions, ‘taking airings’ within the grounds of Buckingham Palace or driving in
open carriages through the streets of London. The very public visibility of the royal family in
London allowed the widest cross-section of the population an eye-witness knowledge of what
their sovereign and her husband looked like. This in turn facilitated an immediate comparison
between their actual physical appearance and their resemblances in portraits, which the
public saw on the walls of the Royal Academy, in the news-print media, or in the windows of
galleries and print-making establishments. Therefore, the participation in the debate on the
adequacy of these images was not limited to the immediate circles of the court or the art
cognoscenti, but extended to British society at large.
From the late 1830s onwards, a notion of the “Patron Portrait” was mooted in the
press. For example, a satirical article by Richard Hengist-Horne appeared in Bentley’s
Miscellany in September 1838, reflecting the growing frustration of the Queen, her subjects,
and the art critics in finding an artist who would do justice to royal representations. 70 He
listed the overwhelming number of the Queen’s portraits in public circulation – “some fat,
some slim, some short of stature, some full ten heads high, some very pale, some very rose,
many brunette, and with features and expressions of all sorts of different and opposite
characters,” and concluded that among them there were “no two alike.” The writer then
recalled an edict of 1563 by Queen Elizabeth I, who forbade “ye multitude of wicked and
impertinent artists” to produce further portraits of herself, until an artist was found who did
69
70
Colley 1992, 199.
Horne 1838, 240-248.
45
justice to the image and majesty of her sovereign body. The resulting portrait was thence
known as the “Patron Portrait.” 71 Most importantly, the portrait served as the officiallysanctioned prototype, from which all further engraved and printed images of the sovereign
were derived. It is through this measure of control, argued Horne, that Elizabeth I became
instantly recognisable in all her portraits. He appealed to Queen Victoria to exercise the same
degree of control over her own iconography: “There must be a Patron Portrait!” Horne
exclaimed in conclusion.
It is possible, therefore, that the sheer number and variety of artists who received
portrait commissions from Queen Victoria between 1837 and 1842 reflected not only the royal
tradition of art patronage but also the continuous search for the royal “limner,” capable of
delivering the ‘Patron Portrait’ to the sovereign and her subjects. Early in 1841 the search
extended beyond the Channel, when the royal attention was focused on Franz Xaver
Winterhalter (fig. 29). The Queen and her subjects had been aware of the artist since at least
1837. The British press frequently discussed his works in the reviews of Parisian Salon
exhibitions, and a number of his most celebrated compositions were disseminated through
lithographs and engravings in fashionable magazines and sold through print dealers. 72 Careful
enquires had been made by the Palace about Winterhalter’s prices and his availability. 73
“… a German artist called Winterhalter …”
What was known of Winterhalter prior to his arrival in London? What were the
milestones of his career to date? Nothing in Franz Xaver Winterhalter’s birth, upbringing, or
ancestry would have foretold his brilliant career and future prestigious position as Europe’s
preferred portrait specialist. Nothing, that is, apart from his prodigious talent. 74 Winterhalter’s
beginnings were very humble. The artist was born on 20 April 1805 in the picturesque Black
71
Ibid.
Cf. “The Exhibition at Paris,” The Times, 5 April 1838, 5.
73
Millar 1992, 1:284.
74
The artist’s biography on pages 47-49 is not the principal focus of this study. The following
biographical outline concentrates mainly on Winterhalter’s life and career prior to his arrival in
England, and is gleaned from the following sources: Winterhalter 1987-1988, Panter 1996, and Mayer
1998.
72
46
Forest town of Menzenschwand in the Grand Duchy of Baden, roughly 200 kilometres south
of its capital, Karlsruhe. He was the sixth child of Fidel Winterhalter (1773-1863), a resin
farmer and inn keeper, and his wife, Eva Mayer (1765-1838). 75 His house, though altered,
still stands in Menzenschwand, on the street that now bears his name. Winterhalter’s early
sketches showed an innate aptitude for drawing, and a pragmatic solution was found to
nurture the young artist’s talent. In 1818 he was sent to study drawing and engraving
through an apprenticeship at the studio of Karl Ludwig Schüler (1785-1852), an artist who
ran a printing establishment in Freiburg-im-Bresgau, the nearest town of any substance about
50 kilometres north-west of Menzenschwand. 76 Within a year, Schüler’s studio merged with
the respected lithographic and publishing house of Bartholomäus Herder (1774-1839), where
Winterhalter spent the next four years while studying his craft as an apprentice engraver and
lithographer. The importance of his early apprenticeship in lithography cannot be
underestimated, as it gave the adolescent artist an opportunity to practice and improve his
drawing skills. He lithographed a wide cross-section of works by the Old and Modern masters,
from Titian (c.1485-1576) (c.1824, lithograph, the Markgraf von Baden) to Louis-Leopold
Robert
(1794-1835)
(c.1825,
lithograph,
Staatliche
Kunsthalle,
Karlsruhe).
Portraits
constituted a significant proportion of his lithographic output, from Karl Joseph Stieler’s
(1781-1858) portraits of the Bavarian Royal Family to lithographs after his own original
compositions, which Winterhalter began to produce towards the end of his apprenticeship in
the early 1820s (see, for example, figs. 30 and 31). 77 Last but not least, these early
experiences also would have indoctrinated in Winterhalter the knowledge and appreciation of
the lithographic medium as the means to mass reproduce popular images and historically
important portraits. As will be demonstrated later in this study, these experiences would
come to play an important role throughout his career.
75
Of the eight children born to Fidel and Eva Winterhalter, only four survived beyond infancy: Justina
(1793-1867), Theresia (1799-1863), Franz Xaver (1805-1873), and (Fidel) Hermann (1808-1873). On
his mother’s side, Winterhalter was related to the artists Franz Sales Mayer (1849-1927) and Hans
Thoma (1839-1924).
76
Panter 1996, 29-30.
77
Ibid. See also Barilo von Reisberg 2007, 10-11, for further examples of Winterhalter’s lithographic
output from the 1820s.
47
In 1823, the local philanthropist David Freiherr von Eichthal (1775-1850) secured for
Winterhalter a modest stipend from Ludwig I, Grand Duke of Baden (1763-1830), which
enabled the artist to leave Herder’s workshop and enter the Bavarian Royal Academy of Art in
Munich, one of the most significant German art establishments of the time. While he diligently
studied at the Academy under the pro-Nazarene Peter von Cornelius (1783-1867), the young
artist preferred the lessons he received at the studio of Karl Joseph Stieler, whose portraits
he continued to lithograph through the mid-1820s (fig. 30). 78 Upon completion of his studies,
Winterhalter undertook a sabbatical travelling around Germany, visiting famous museums,
copying from the Old Masters, and undertaking his first portrait commissions. The Grand
Duke of Baden continued his patronage of the young artist by giving Winterhalter in 1828 his
first court appointment as a drawing master in the household of his morganatic half-brother
Leopold Graf von Hochberg (1790-1852). When the latter succeeded in March 1830 as the
reigning Grand Duke of Baden (after much political and diplomatic manoeuvring), 79 he
continued Ludwig I’s patronage of Winterhalter, and provided him with a travelling stipend,
which allowed the artist to leave for Italy. 80 Between 1832 and 1834, Winterhalter was mainly
based in Rome, where he copied the Old Masters, and painted and drew assiduously. His
Italian period is notable for the emergence of highly skilled, colourful, and engaging genre
scenes of Mediterranean peasants, Italian, Spanish, or Albanian, who are shown playing by
the fountain, reposing in the shade, or gathering grapes in brightly-coloured idealised
traditional costumes. Upon Winterhalter’s return to Karlsruhe in August 1834, the Grand Duke
elevated him from the humble position of a drawing master to that of the official painter to
the Grand Ducal court. 81 However, by the end of 1834, Winterhalter unexpectedly packed his
bags, easel, and brushes, and left Karlsruhe for Paris.
The reasons for this sudden move are not hard to guess. It can be argued that
Winterhalter’s studies in Freiburg and Munich, travels around Germany, and an official
appointment at a progressive but relatively modest court at Karlsruhe would have exposed
78
Barilo von Reisberg 2007, 10-11.
See Bernardy 1977, 167-69.
80
Panter 1996, 40-43.
81
Ibid., 53-62.
79
48
the perceptive young artist to the fact that in the early 1830s Germany still lacked a single,
focal artistic centre. In the post-Napoleonic period, Germany consisted of more than thirty
kingdoms, duchies, and principalities, with each sovereign ruler working hard to establish the
reputation of their respective capitals as centres of art education and connoisseurship. 82 This
contrasted sharply with Paris or London, which were cultural and artistic epicentres of their
respective nations. Winterhalter’s interaction with the cosmopolitan community of artists in
Italy, and especially his friendship with the artist Horace Vernet (1789-1863), Director of the
French Academy in Rome from 1829 to 1834, would have convinced Winterhalter that Paris
was the only place on the Continent for a hard-working and ambitious artist like himself to
seek fame and the wider recognition of his talents.
Winterhalter arrived in Paris in December 1834, and began exhibiting at the Salon
shortly afterwards. His colourful large-scale Italianate genre scenes brought him critical
success and popular recognition. 83 Winterhalter complemented his annual Salon contributions
with portraits, and his initial sitters were drawn from the circle of influential Parisians with
Badenese and Bavarian connections. 84 The artist’s biographers disagree on how Winterhalter
came to the attention of Louis-Philippe, King of the French (1773-1850), who was in the
market for a new portrait painter. 85 However, I would argue that the idea may have come
from the King’s influential sister, Madame Adélaïde (1777-1847), and was based on the
success of Winterhalter’s earlier composition of Prince de Wagram with his daughter, painted
in 1837, and exhibited at the Salon of 1838 (fig. 32). 86 What is known for certain is that by
82
For a detailed analysis of the state of the arts in Germany in the early to mid-nineteenth-century see
Lenmann 1997, passim.
83
The most celebrated of Winterhalter’s genre scenes which were exhibited at the Parisian salon were
Il Dolce Farniente (1836, Salon 1836, oil on canvas, Private Collection), and The Decameron (1837,
Salon 1837, oil on canvas, Private Collection). See Salon exhibition catalogues, from 1835 to 1837.
84
Ibid. The sitters included the Planat de la Faye family, who were relations of the Baron von Eichthal,
and who served at the court of Stephanie, Grand Duchess Dowager of Baden (1786-1860) (see
Bernardy 1977, 97); the aristocratic Wagram family, issue of a Napoleonic general and a Bavarian
princess (fig. 32) (the Wagram family is extensively discussed in Martini 1977, passim); Franz Oliver
Graf Jenison-Walworth, the Bavarian Ambassador in Paris; and Ferdinand Freiherr von Schweitzer, a
Karlsruhe-born Parisian art collector, among others. Cf. Barilo von Reisberg 2007, 23-26.
85
Winterhalter 1987-1988 and Panter 1996 speculate that the artist may have been mentioned in the
letters of Stephanie, Grand Duchess Dowager of Baden, who regularly corresponded with Marie
Elisabeth Amélie, Princesse et Duchesse de Wagram (1784-1849) and Marie-Amélie, Queen of the
French (1782-1866).
86
This is suggested in a letter from Louse-Marie, Queen of Belgians, to Queen Victoria. (see Millar
1992, 1:302). This would also explain why, according to my research, the first members of the French
49
the summer of 1838, merely three years after his arrival in Paris, Winterhalter began
receiving regular commissions from the French Royal Family, and their portraits (as well as
countless engravings, lithographs, and miniature copies on porcelain and ivory) became a
regular staple of Salon exhibitions (fig.33). 87 While the critics bemoaned Winterhalter’s
abandonment of academically-inspired genre scenes in favour of society portraiture, 88 the
public flocked to view his new works at the Salon. His portraits of royal princesses inspired
romantic poetry and violent declarations of love (fig. 34); his romanticised swashbuckling
portraits of the King’s sons silhouetted against a low horizon were deemed to be worthy of
the late Thomas Lawrence (fig. 35). 89 By the time Winterhalter received an invitation from
Queen Victoria in 1842, Britons were also well aware of Winterhalter’s reputation as an elite
portrait specialist on the Continent: “The first portrait painter in France, and at the French
Court, is … Winterhalter, who, by the by, is now coming to England to paint a portrait of the
Queen”, The Examiner informed its readers in April of that year. 90
Close family ties between the French and British royal families (see Appendix II)
facilitated the traditional exchange of portraits between Paris and London, and, as will be
demonstrated below, Winterhalter’s portraits of Victoria and Albert’s relatives at the French
and Belgian courts were regularly making their way across the Channel to England. The first
such arrival was officially recorded in 1838, when Victoria’s aunt, Louise-Marie, Queen of the
Belgians, sent a portrait of herself with her eldest son, the Duc de Brabant (fig. 36). Victoria
recorded her impressions of the portrait in her Journal as being “so like … and beautifully
painted by a German artist called Winterhalter.” 91 This was followed in 1840 by a threequarter-length replica of the magnificent portrait of Victoire, Duchesse de Nemours, the
original version of which would create a sensation when it was exhibited at the Salon the
Royal Family to be painted by Winterhalter were not the King and his Queen, but rather the King’s
daughters with their children, and, most conspicuously, the Duc d’Aumale, who was Madame
Adélaïde’s godson and heir. See Barilo von Reisberg 2007, 26-31, for the 1838-1839 portraits of the
French Royal Family. On the influence of Mme Adélaíde, see Arnaud 1908, passim.
87
See Salon exhibition catalogues from 1837 to 1848.
88
Cf. Winterhalter 1987-1988, 36.
89
See for example, Charles Lenormant, “Salon de 1846,” Le Correspondant (Paris: Librarie de Sagnier
et Bray, 1846), 14: 379, or Winterhalter 1987-1988, 34.
90
“Fine Arts,” The Examiner, 30 April 1842, 121.
91
Queen Victoria’s Journal, 24 December 1838; quoted in Millar 1992, 1:301-302.
50
following year (figs. 37 and 38). 92 In September 1841 Victoria was given by the Queen of the
French and the Queen of the Belgians the portrait of the infant Philippe Herzog von
Württemberg (fig. 36a), which she agreed was “frappant”. 93 By the end of December 1841,
she received the three-quarter-length replicas of Winterhalter’s pendant portraits of the King
and Queen of the Belgians (figs. 39 and 40). These were supplemented by the Queen’s own
purchase of Winterhalter’s genre scene La Siesta in 1841 (1841, oil on canvas, Private
Collection). By the middle of 1842, Queen Victoria owned, by gift or purchase, six paintings
by the artist, as well as a number of copies in oil, watercolour, and miniature (the latter
frequently set into pieces of wearable jewellery). 94 Judging by the Queen’s diary entries, even
before his arrival in England, Winterhalter had already satisfied one of the most important
requirements of Victoria’s personal aesthetic criteria – he had proven his ability to deliver a
perfect likeness, speedily, accurately, and every time. Secondly, the high regard bestowed
upon Winterhalter by Queen Victoria’s French and Belgian relations – as well as his
connection close with them – further commended the artist to the Queen. 95
The Queen of the Belgians played an active part in Winterhalter’s arrival in London. 96
In a letter to Queen Victoria, she gave the artist a glowing reference, describing him as
modest, unassuming, and amiable; “a very excellent man full of zeal for his art, of good will,
obligingness and real modesty.” 97 She acted as an intermediary for the artist, who had long
expressed the wish to come to England. Louise-Marie wrote to Queen Victoria to obtain
recommendations that would have given Winterhalter an unrestricted entrée to public and
private collections, celebrated houses, and artists’ studios. In a letter to the Queen of the
Belgians in September 1841, Victoria replied that while Winterhalter was in London, “he must
92
Cf. Ténint 1841, 31-32; and “The Paris Exhibition,” The Examiner, 21 March 1841, 181, among
other numerous reviews of this portrait.
93
Marie-Amélie, Queen of the French, in a letter to Queen Victoria, 9 September 1841; quoted in
Millar 1992, 1:304.
94
The Queen had also started a representative collection of lithographs and engravings after
Winterhalter’s works that included genre scenes and portraits. One lithograph, Les Italiennes à la
Fontaine, is lovingly inscribed ‘mon premier Winterhalter’ (as seen by the author in the collection of
HM Queen Elizabeth II, Royal Library, Windsor Castle, 2005). Though the exact date of its acquisition
is not recorded, the lithograph was published in 1837, and thus may have been acquired by the Queen
prior to receiving the portrait of the Queen of the Belgians with the Duc of Brabant.
95
For the discussion of Queen Victoria’s aesthetic principles, see ante.
96
On Louise-Marie, Queen of Belgians, see Kerkvoorde 2001, passim.
97
Millar 1992, 1:284.
51
paint us, and Pussy [the Queen’s eldest child, Victoria, the Princess Royal (1840-1901)].” 98
When the artist arrived in June 1842, he was received by the Queen, accommodated at
Windsor Castle, and shortly afterwards commenced his work on the portraits of Queen
Victoria and Prince Albert. The Queen mentioned in her Journal six sittings for her portrait
between 8 and 25 June 1842. At the last sitting, she wrote: “The likeness is perfect and the
picture very fine.” 99 The dress and the background were completed during the ensuing
weeks, and one more sitting took place on 21 July. 100
Winterhalter portrayed Queen Victoria standing, three-quarter-length, half-turned to
the left, her arms folded, wearing a white low-cut ball gown richly decorated with lace, and
holding a posy of roses in her hands (fig. 41). She wears little jewellery, but every piece has
an intimate meaning and significance, which would have been known to those closely
connected with the sovereign: a small neo-Gothic diamond and sapphire diadem which was
designed for her by Albert; a simple golden chain and locket given to her by the Queen of the
Belgians and containing a lock of Prince Albert’s hair; 101 a diamond and sapphire brooch Prince Albert’s wedding present; 102 and a wedding band. The fact that the Queen chose to
pose for the well-known artist, who especially came from Europe to paint her portrait, not in
sumptuous Crown jewels, but in personal signifiers of her love and devotion, further
illustrates Ames’s observation about Queen Victoria’s attachment to the extrinsic values of the
items, rather their monetary or historical significance. 103
In Winterhalter’s painting, the Queen is wearing an elegant and fashionable evening
gown; the presence of flowers is symbolic of femininity and youth. Her silhouette is bathed in
a bright light, and is effectively contrasted against the background of a threatening sky. The
Queen is not static or rigidly posed, but appears to be traversing across the picture plane.
The swirling clouds are echoed in the outline of the trailing lace shawl, reinforcing a feeling of
movement. The fluidity within Winterhalter’s portrait strongly contrasts with the earlier inert
98
Ibid., 1:304.
Ibid., 1:286.
100
Ibid.
101
Ibid.
102
Menkes 1985, 28-29. The brooch is still in the possession of the royal family; and is reportedly one
of the favourite pieces of jewellery of Queen Elizabeth II.
103
Cf. ante, and Ames 1968, 5.
99
52
depictions of the Queen, as can be observed, for example, in the portrait by Partridge (fig.
26). The painting is reminiscent compositionally of Winterhalter’s female portraits of the
French Royal Family, such as those of the Queen of the Belgians and Duchesse de Nemours
(fig. 37), and in particular the three-quarter-length versions of these portraits, which were
sent to Queen Victoria (figs. 38 and 40). These portraits display a similar positioning of the
figures against landscape backgrounds with swirling clouds. The absence of visual signifiers of
their royal status, such as ceremonial robes or sumptuous jewellery, likewise imbues these
portraits with a certain air of studied informality. The reason for this is not only the placement
of Queen Victoria’s portrait within the context of Winterhalter’s female portraits of the era,
but also perhaps an original intention to include the painting within a thematic arrangement
of portraits in one of the Queen’s residences. That such installations still took place in the first
half of the nineteenth century can be demonstrated by the Waterloo Chamber at Windsor
Castle, which consisted predominantly of portraits painted by Lawrence for George IV.
Further examples include a similar Napoleonic War-themed 1812 Gallery in St Petersburg’s
Winter Palace, containing over three hundred and thirty portraits by Lawrence’s
contemporary,
George
Dawe,
for
the
Emperor
of
Russia, 104
and
the
famous
Schönheitensgalerie (the Gallery of Beauties) painted by Joseph Karl Stieler for the King of
Bavaria at the Nymphenburg Castle. 105 Furthermore, Louis-Philippe, King of the French, was
actively collecting and commissioning portraits of historical figures as well as his
contemporaries for the Musée de l’Histoire de France at the Château de Versailles, 106 and for
which the Queen sent Louis-Philippe portraits of herself and Prince Albert (respectively) by
Partridge and Lucas. 107 Though ultimately Winterhalter’s portraits of Queen Victoria and
Prince Albert were installed at Windsor Castle, the French and Belgian royal portraits were
indeed arranged at a later date in the 1844 Room at Buckingham Palace to commemorate the
entente cordiale between England and France, the focal point of which was the visit of Louis104
See L.A. Dukelskaia and E.P. Renne, The Hermitage Catalogue of Western European Painting:
British Painting Sixteenth to Nineteenth Centuries, vol 13 (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,
1990).
105
See Gerhard Hojer, Die Schönheitensgalerie König Ludwigs I (Regensburg: Schnell und Steiner,
2006).
106
Dauvillier 1997, 34-36.
107
Millar 1992, 1:286, 322.
53
Philippe to England in October of 1844. 108 Versions and copies after Winterhalter’s French
royal portraits dominated this installation, which further supports the theory that the
compositional similarity between Winterhalter’s portraits of the French Royal Family and his
portrait of the Queen may have been guided by the original intention of including it within a
similar historically- or dynastically-themed display.
The execution of the painting also deserves to be examined, albeit briefly.
Winterhalter painted Victoria’s face, shoulders and hands, as well as her hair and jewellery,
with smooth, barely perceptible brushstrokes, while the dress and background landscape are
rendered in a looser, more vigorous manner, which creates a rich and luscious surface.
Winterhalter’s energetic brushwork and the tactile texture of the painting appear
unexpectedly modern and innovative in the context of formal 1840s portraiture. More than
thirty years later, the aesthetically conservative Queen Victoria still mused to her daughter,
the Crown Princess of Germany, about Winterhalter’s “occasionally rough and broad touches
left unfinished … which we delighted in.” 109
When the portrait was completed, it received wide acclaim and approbation from her
courtiers. It succeeded in terms of likeness, colour, and overall composition. Moreover, it was
perceived to be a truly modern work of art because of its remarkable naturalism, the studied
informality, surface texture, vigorous brushwork, and close iconographic relation to
Winterhalter’s other female portraits of the era. One of the Queen’s attendants, Georgiana,
Lady Bloomfield (1822-1905), thought Winterhalter caught “the expression of the Queen’s
mouth” better than his predecessors, for “it is peculiar and very difficult to render without
being a caricature.” 110 Eleanor Stanley, another of Victoria’s ladies, would later remark upon
the Queen’s “most striking likeness, even to the rather too deep colour of the nose.” 111
Hayter’s more jaundiced criticism was directed at the painterly quality of the picture, which he
described as heavy, but he also conceded that the portrait was “exceedingly like.” 112 Indeed,
108
The 1844 Room remained intact at Buckingham Palace until it was dismantled by George V in the
1930s: see Millar 1992, 1:xxx.
109
Queen Victoria to Victoria, Crown Princess of Germany, Osborne House, 3 April 1875; quoted
Darling Child 1871-1878 1976, n.p.
110
Bloomfield 1883, 40.
111
Stanley 1916, 142.
112
Queen Victoria’s Journal, 21 June 1842; quoted in Millar 1992, 1:286.
54
the corporeality of Winterhalter’s portrait contrasts visibly with earlier depictions of the Queen
discussed above. Though her features are smoothed over and idealised, Winterhalter still
captured her distinctive physical traits: slightly protruding eyes, the Coburg nose, and an oval
face with a weak chin; sloping shoulders, full arms, and a realistic waist line. She does not
avert her gaze, but looks directly at the spectator. The lips are slightly parted, teeth just
peeping through, as if ready to start a conversation.
Winterhalter’s portrait was able to satisfy the multiple prerequisites placed upon the
notion of a likeness in mid-nineteenth century portraiture as discussed in the previous
chapter. Prior to the invention of photography, which captured the features of a person
through an arguably unbiased mechanical process, only a specialist portrait artist was trusted
with relaying the features of an official visage or the intimate resemblance of a loved one.
However, it must be taken into account that every artist paints in a different style, according
to his or her own training, aesthetics, and perception of the ideal. Painting is not a
mechanical process. Just like the uniqueness of handwriting, the brushwork and painting
techniques differ greatly from artist to artist. This is what makes artists’ works, including
portraits, distinguishable from one another. The hand of Rubens can be instantly told apart
from that of Van Dyck; a Reynolds from Gainsborough; a Winterhalter from Ingres; Boldini
from Sargent. The same can be observed of Queen Victoria’s portraits – every artist, from
Wilkie through to Chalon and Hayter painted the same person, but interpreted Victoria
through the multifaceted prism of their own style, aesthetics, and understanding of the
subject. Why did Winterhalter’s interpretation ‘please’ Queen Victoria the most? It can be
argued that the correct oval of the face, the faultless veneer of flawless skin, large soulful
eyes, and exquisite rosebud mouth, which were captured by Winterhalter in his portrait of
Queen Victoria, corresponded with the prevalent feminine ideal of the era. It is comparable to
the idealised appearance of women in popular genre paintings and fashionable magazines like
the Keepsake, Ladies’ Journal, and other ‘Books of Beauties.’ The origins and the specific
construct of the ‘Victorian’ face deserve further study, which is beyond the scope of this
55
essay. 113 However, it would appear that the significant part of Winterhalter’s success in his
first portrait of the Queen was due to the fact that he had attained the perfect balance
between Victoria’s distinctive facial traits and the physiognomic ideal of the era.
Furthermore, following discussions on the duality of likeness by Brilliant and
Woodall, 114 we are all too familiar with the experience of looking through photographs
purporting to be faithful images of ourselves, only to be disappointed with how we look in
those pictures. While the photograph testifies to the faithful reproduction of our features, we
do not necessarily like what we look like in the pictures. We also heed with a certain amount
of caution the subjective opinion of others about the way we look in these same photographs.
Although we may not like a particular image of ourselves, others would testify to the fact that
the image is not only like ourselves, but it is also a good likeness. It was due to Winterhalter’s
genius, that his portraits more often than not satisfied these frequent polar opposites of
personal and public opinion. Judging from the entries in Queen Victoria’s diaries, not only was
the Queen satisfied with her likeness in the sense of the physical accuracy of the portrait, but
she was also pleased with the way she looked in it. As seen from the correspondence of the
Queen’s ladies, public opinion regarding the portrait concurred with her own: not only did her
courtiers approve of what they perceived to be a faithful depiction of the monarch (including
her ‘peculiar’ mouth, and ‘too deep colour of the nose’), they also liked what their sovereign
looked like in the portrait by Winterhalter. Even thirty years later, the Crown Princess of
Germany echoed the general opinion of Winterhalter’s successful portrayal of the Queen: “My
own dear Mamma’s face has a charm that none but Winterhalter’s pictures have ever
approached.” 115
113
To date, I have not found a particular article or treatise that would delineate what late Georgians and
early Victorians believed to be - or perceived as - the ideal beauty (in the physical rather than spiritual
or behavioural sense) – perhaps, mainly because there were no versions of contemporary beauty and
fashion magazines at the time, that would have specifically spelt out – and even predicted – the perfect
face or preferred body image of the day. While Casteras’ volume on the images of Victorian women
was very helpful as a visual reference, it once again avoided spelling out and delineating the origins
and the main facets of the physical, facial ideal, but focuses on the characteristics, types, and
behavioural prerequisites of Victorian womanhood (Cf. Casteras 1987, passim).
114
Cf. Brilliant 1991, passim; and Woodall 1987, 1-25.
115
Victoria, Crown Princess of Germany, to Queen Victoria, Berlin, 20 January 1871; quoted in Your
Dear Letter 1865-1871 1971, n.p.
56
The portrait of Prince Albert by Winterhalter corresponds with the pendant portrait of
the Queen in terms of the composition, size, studied informality, and positioning of the figure
(fig. 42). The sittings for the portrait were recorded on 8, 26, and 27 of July, and on the day
of the last sitting, the Queen described it in her diary as “such a beautiful picture.” 116 More
than thirty years later, in 1873, she would confess to Prince Albert’s biographer, Sir Theodore
Martin (1816-1909) that it was among her favourite portraits of the Prince. 117 While
iconographically the portrait does not represent a dramatic departure from Albert’s earlier
depictions as seen in the examples above, Winterhalter once again displayed within the
painting his innovative sense of energy and acute corporeality hitherto unseen in portraits of
Prince Albert by British artists.
In a similar fashion to the portrait of the Queen, the pendant of Prince Albert is based
on - and strongly relates to – Winterhalter’s portraits of French royal princes, such as those of
the Dukes d’Aumale and d’Orléans (figs. 35 and 43), or their three-quarter-length versions
(fig. 44). They are also silhouetted against a landscape background with swirling clouds. The
high vantage point, low horizon line, and the military uniform give them a vaguely heroic air,
reminiscent of Lawrence’s Waterloo portraits of two decades earlier. As Linda Colley argued,
the representation of royalty and aristocracy in military garb is illustrative of their traditional
leadership of the armed forces and symbolic of their official role as protectors of their
subjects and defenders of their domains. 118 If Victoria is all white lace, cream, and flounces,
Albert in his dark uniform, which emphasises his narrow waist and broad shoulders, clasps
the sword with his right hand in a gesture of strength, fortitude, and military valour, as the
defender of his Queen and – by extension – of her country. 119 Albert’s portrait also illustrates
the Prince’s official elevation to the rank of Field-Marshal; the Orders of the Garter 120 and the
Golden Fleece 121 are proudly displayed on his chest and around his neck. However, while the
116
Barilo von Reisberg 2007, 40.
Millar 1992, 1:287.
118
Cf. Colley 1992, 178-191.
119
The Mameluke-hilted sword has been identified by the Major Rankin-Hunt as being c. 1805,
formerly belonging to the Prince Regent, and still in the Royal Collection. Cf. Millar 1992, 1:287.
120
Prince Albert received the Order of the Garter, along with his ‘Anglicized’ name, while still in
Gotha, on 23 January 1840. Cf. Weintraub 1997, 4.
121
Prince Albert was given the Order of the Golden Fleece, the highest chivalry order of the Spanish
Kingdom and of the Austrian Empire, by Isabel II, Queen of Spain, and personally invested with it on
117
57
French princes wear their uniform with distinction and in actual reference to their military
achievements – both Orléans and Aumale distinguished themselves in the Algerian campaigns
of the early 1840s 122 – for Prince Albert, the uniform and headship of a military squadron
were purely honorary, bestowed upon Albert by the Queen. 123 The portrait cannot ignore
Albert’s underlying indebtedness for his position to Victoria. When their portraits are placed
side by side, Victoria gazes directly at the viewer, while Albert appears to be glancing
deferentially and reverently at his Queen: his position as the consort and the subject is reaffirmed and established. However, a studied informality once again pervades the picture.
The Prince is shown in black “undress” jacket, rather than the official crimson uniform. 124
Furthermore, he is not holding a Field-Marshal’s baton; his military decorations are not
emphasised by the respective coloured ribbons that are usually worn across the chest. 125
I would argue that the relatively modest size of these portraits, the Prince’s averted
gaze, and the absence of opulent decorations in the portrait of the Queen suggest that these
paintings were not intended as official representations of the royal couple. 126 The emphasis in
these portraits is on the likeness of the sitters rather than on the visual signifiers of
monarchical or military power. A possible explanation for such a modest portrayal is that
Queen Victoria, at this time, was cautious about publicly acknowledging her patronage of a
foreign artist. Therefore, they were most likely painted for the Queen and Prince’s immediate
circle, which further strengthens the earlier argument that these portraits may have been
originally intended for inclusion in a thematically-based display of portraits within a royal
residence, and away from the gaze of the wider audiences. However, judging from the
entries in Queen Victoria’s diaries quoted above, as well as the positive feedback she received
about these portraits from her entourage, the Queen gradually realised that she finally beheld
her first pair of “Patron Portraits.”
the Queen’s behalf by the Duke of Wellington (also a Knight of the Golden Fleece) at Buckingham
Palace in April 1841: see “Prince Albert,” John Bull, 1 May 1841, 214.
122
For the biography of the Duc d’Aumale, see Cazelles 2004, passim.; for the biography of the Duc
d’Olréans, see Orléans 1859, passim.
123
Weintraub 1997, 14-16.
124
For the particulars of Prince Albert’s uniform in this portrait, see Millar 1992, 1:286-7.
125
As seen, for example, in Prince Albert’s subsequent portraits by Winterhalter, which are discussed
in the following chapter.
126
On the tradition of direct gaze in state and official portraiture, see Brown and Vlieghe 1999, 304.
58
While the original pair of portraits were let into the walls of the White Drawing Room
at Windsor Castle in December 1842 (where they remain to the present day), replicas were
commissioned from Winterhalter without delay. 127 The second version of Prince Albert’s
portrait remained unaltered, but the portrait of the Queen featured the important addition of
the Order of the Garter with the accompanying badge and its distinctive blue ribbon, which
gave the portrait a more formal appearance (the significance of the Order of the Garter will
be discussed in more detail in the following chapter) (fig. 45). The replicas were rushed off to
the King of the French to replace the ‘atrocious’ pair by Partridge and Lucas at the King’s
‘museum’ at the Château de Versailles. 128 Upon seeing the new portraits at the château, the
Queen of the Belgians described them as beautiful, and an improvement upon the
originals. 129 Prior to their departure for France, the portraits went on public display at
Colnaghi’s. The critical response to the portraits was predominantly positive. The press found
the resemblance to the Queen “the most successful which we have yet seen,” 130 and foretold
the pervading popularity of Winterhalter’s images among the existing portraits of Victoria:
“Although the portraits of the Queen … have been multiplied ad infinitum, these will
doubtless come in for their share of honour.” 131 The public reception of Prince Albert’s
portrait was not as enthusiastic as that of Queen Victoria’s. If her portrait was a revelation in
terms on likeness, dignity, and corporeality, displaying a “delicious piece of drawing, [and
the] want of technical affectation,” that of Prince Albert was declared as being
“commonplace,” and Albert’s countenance was found to evince “a look of ill-health and
depression.” 132 An anonymous critic from The Age continued to expand on the comparison
between the two portraits, declaring that “which in the portrait of the Queen is merely
tenderness and delicacy, is [in the portrait of Prince Albert] timidity and wash weakness of
manner.” 133 Nevertheless, the critical consensus was that the present painting was the best
portrait produced of the Prince to date. The portraits became the official representation of
127
Barilo von Reisberg 2007, 40-41.
On the decision to replace Lucas and Partridge’s portraits with versions of Winterhalter’s 1842
portraits, see Millar 1992, 1:286, 322.
129
The Queen of the Belgians to Queen Victoria, 1843; quoted in Millar 1992, 1:286.
130
“Portraits of the Queen and Prince Albert,” The Age, 26 February 1843, 3.
131
“Portraits of the Queen and Prince Albert,” The Art Journal, 3, November 1851, 300.
132
“The Fine Arts,” The Age, 26 February 1843, 3.
133
Ibid.
128
59
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert for years to come, as well as one of the most popular
depictions of the young Queen and Prince. 134 The only negative aspect of the commission in
terms of the public opinion was indeed the fact that the author of the portraits was a
foreigner, and a German.
Winterhalter in the Context of the Royal Patronage of Foreign Artists
Winterhalter was not the first foreign portraitist to be employed at Court. Whenever
Britain ran low on local talent, foreign artists were invited to revitalise British portrait painting.
They injected fresh ideas, introduced new painting techniques, and most importantly created
competent and sophisticated images of British sovereigns that were confidently disseminated
throughout Europe without embarrassment. Holbein had created an authoritative gallery of
Tudor monarchs. The Stuarts extensively employed the Flemish-born Van Dyck, as well as his
followers Lely and Kneller. The Hanoverians alone relied almost exclusively on British artists,
but their reign coincided with an unprecedented flowering of native talent. By the time of
Queen Victoria’s accession (as demonstrated in Chapter 1), it became necessary once again
to seek a foreign specialist to satisfy the requirements of official court portraiture.
The German question is a complex one in the annals of British history. It is difficult to
name another country with which England has had such a love/hate relationship. As
demonstrated by Colley and Steegman, even when Britain shielded refugees fleeing the
French Revolution, or fought Napoleon on the fields of Waterloo, the British elite still looked
to France as the leader in arts and fashion, and the ties between the two countries were not
entirely broken. 135 This contrasts strongly with the British reaction to Germany at the onset of
the First World War, when diplomatic and cultural relations between the two countries were
severed, and the British Royal Family anglicised their names and disowned their German
134
Cf. Ormond 1977, 35-36. The portrait may also be judged to have been among the preferred
likenesses of the young Queen considering the number of copies after the portraits which regularly
appear on the auction market to the present day: see Appendix II for the list of known copies after these
portraits.
135
Steegman 1968, 156-7.
60
relatives en masse, including the Coburg and Hanoverian branches of the family. 136 The
religious ties between the two Protestant countries predate the predominance of German
blood in the royal veins. After the separation from Rome under Henry VIII, British monarchs
came to occupy a unique position as the Head of State and the Head of its Church. The Royal
Settlement Act of 1701 barred a Roman Catholic, or anyone married to a Roman Catholic,
from the line of succession. With a single stroke of the pen, more than 50 individuals became
ineligible to inherit the British throne, and the Crown eventually passed to a Hanoverian
cousin of Queen Anne, whom he succeeded as George I. The Royal Marriages Act of 1772
proscribed marriages without the Sovereign’s consent, essentially preventing English princes
from marrying outside their rank. It upheld the mystique of royalty as a separate caste, and
emphasised the distinction between royalty and aristocracy. However, it further reduced the
marriage pool for the British Royal Family, who were left to seek eligible spouses in
Protestant German states, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia. The Hanoverians kings of
England emphasised their Englishness, and though they inevitably selected predominantly
German spouses for reasons enumerated above, they were wary of appointing Germans to
prominent positions within their Courts, thus avoiding an accusation of creating a German
‘camarilla’. 137 This extended to the royal art patronage, as foreign artists rarely received
official appointments at Court. During Queen Victoria’s reign, in spite of the fact that from
1842 portrait commissions were increasingly entrusted to Winterhalter, he was never officially
accredited to the British court. Hayter remained Queen Victoria’s officially appointed artist
until his death in 1871. 138 He was succeeded in this position by another British artist, James
Sant (1820-1916), whose work was likewise overshadowed by the Austrian portraitist
Heinrich von Angeli (1840-1925), who became Queen Victoria’s preferred iconographer from
1875 onwards. 139
136
Cf. Countess of Athlone 1966, 143-165; and Pope-Hennessy 1959, 488-510.
Two most notable exceptions during the early reign of Queen Victoria were the Queen’s old nurse,
Baroness Lehzen, who returned to Coburg in 1842; and Freiherr von Stockmar, who was employed at
the court of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in a strictly private advisory capacity until his departure
for Coburg in 1847.
138
Millar 1992, 1:xxv.
139
Ibid., 1:xlv.
137
61
It can be argued that the dominance of Winterhalter’s portraits in the royal
iconography between the 1840s and 1860s has resulted in the popular perception and
criticism of Victoria’s alleged preference for all things German. Millar’s exhaustive study of the
Victorian pictures in the British Royal Collection attests to the erroneousness of such a
view. 140 Though Queen Victoria employed four foreign portrait painters as her exclusive
image makers, they all worked consequentially and not simultaneously. Winterhalter regularly
visited England and worked for the Queen from 1842 until the death of Prince Consort in
1861. Albert Graeffle (1807-1889) and Richard Lauchert (1823-1869), who were both
Winterhalter’s pupils and worked in his studio (the latter was also the Queen’s relation by
marriage), worked briefly for Queen Victoria on the recommendation of her daughter, the
Crown Princess of Prussia, in the mid-1860s, when “Winterhalter was most provoking” and
evaded royal commands to come to England due to ill-health and working commitments on
the Continent. 141 Heinrich von Angeli began working for the British Court from 1875, well
after Winterhalter’s death. In all other genres of painting, the Queen’s support for the British
school of art remained unwavering. Throughout her reign and especially during Prince
Albert’s lifetime, Queen Victoria acquired a prodigious quantity of paintings and drawings by
British artists from the Royal Academy, the British Institution, or by direct commission. A
profusion of landscapes, still-lives and genre pictures by British artists decorated royal
residences. 142 Of all the innumerable large-scale commissions commemorating official
historical and personal events of her reign all but one went to British artists. The royal
patronage of a small number of foreign artists, including Winterhalter, seems an exception
rather than the rule in the general pattern of Queen Victoria’s art patronage.
Furthermore, as John R. Davis’s study of Anglo-German relations in the nineteenth
century shows, the alleged penchant for ‘all things German’ during the reign of Queen
Victoria was observed far beyond the confines of the Royal family. 143 The interest which
140
Cf. Millar 1992, passim.
Queen Victoria to Victoria, Crown Princess of Prussia, Osborne House, 6 May 1863; quoted in
Dearest Mamma 1861-1864 1981, 209.
142
Cf. Millar 1992, passim., and Millar 1995, passim., for the most comprehensive catalogue of
paintings and watercolours (with the respective listings of commissioned and acquired prints and
miniatures) in the British Royal Collection.
143
Davis 2007, passim.
141
62
began at the time of the German Enlightenment in the eighteenth century, well and truly
pervaded all professional spheres and all levels of society by 1837. Davis lists an impressive
array of intellectuals, philosophers, theologians, academics, scientists, politicians, and social
reformers, as well architects, artists, writers, and musicians, who looked to Germany for
advances and progress made within their respective fields in Germany. He specifically
identifies two areas of emulation: scholarship, and the emphasis on “anti-materialism,
spirituality, the imagination and the subjective.” 144 Romanticism and the Nazarene movement
provided a substantial boost to the esteem and popularity of German art in Britain, with such
prominent artists as Lawrence, Eastlake, Turner, Dyce, and Wilkie visiting the Nazarene
powerbase in Munich and its enclave in Rome from the 1820s. 145 Therefore, Winterhalter’s
employment at Court could be seen as reflective of the larger, permeating influence of
Germany in British art, culture, scholarship, and industry.
The German bias aside, it suited the Queen to employ Winterhalter. He worked
quickly and with ease; he was remarkably adept at capturing a likeness, and most of the time
his portraits pleased. Winterhalter always stayed for several months in England, and was
accommodated exclusively by the Queen in royal residences. Therefore, he was always on
hand to execute those spontaneous small-scale and intimate sketches in which the Queen
and the Prince so much delighted and exchanged as gifts. His devotion to the Royal Family
was total, and though in time he developed outside contacts and began attending social
events and accepting portrait commissions beyond the immediate confines of the Queen’s
Court, during these early years, the wishes of his royal patrons took priority. The Queen did
not have to compete for Winterhalter’s attention with other sitters, engagements, or
commitments. Moreover, as will be demonstrated in the following chapter, Victoria retained
the exclusive control of her own imagery, its public display, and distribution. She encountered
opposition from other artists when she resisted lending her portraits for public exhibitions.146
Though Winterhalter submitted four works to the Royal Academy between 1852 and 1867,
144
Ibid., 64.
Ibid., 202.
146
Stanley 1916, 98.
145
63
none of them were royal commissions. 147 It remained at the sole discretion of the Queen
which of the portraits commissioned from Winterhalter were shown publicly, and which were
to be engraved or lithographed. 148 Though Queen Victoria and Prince Albert continued to
accept portrait requests from various institutions and government bodies and sit to British
artists of their choice at least until 1845, Winterhalter was invested with the responsibility of
producing the “Patron Portrait” at regular intervals over the next twenty years. The most
important of these were the official whole lengths state portraits of 1843 and 1859, which will
form the focus of the next chapter.
147
The only painting by Winterhalter in the Royal Collection, which was exhibited at the Royal
Academy is Florinda (1852, oil on canvas, HM Queen Elizabeth II). However, the painting was not
commissioned by Queen Victoria, but acquired by her from the artist’s studio in April 1852. Cf. Barilo
von Reisberg 2007, 86, and Royal Academy exhibition catalogues of 1852, 1853, 1856, and 1867.
148
I am basing this statement on my research, which shows that only a small proportion of paintings
and watercolours commissioned by the Queen and Prince from Winterhalter were lithographed or
publicly exhibited. See Barilo von Reisberg 2007, passim.
64
CHAPTER III:
FRANZ XAVER WINTERHALTER’S OFFICIAL PORTRAITS OF
QUEEN VICTORIA AND PRINCE ALBERT, 1843 - 1859
Garters and Petticoats: Official Portraits of 1843
The popular and critical reception of Winterhalter’s 1842 portraits served as an
impetus for Queen Victoria to invite Winterhalter to return to England in 1843. 1 The artist
was commissioned to execute a pair of far more ambitious and imposing paintings – official
full-length portraits of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. It was now unthinkable for the
Queen to distribute a solitary portrait of herself: as Margaret Homans has argued in
“Victoria’s Sovereign Obedience,” Queen Victoria allayed the “fears of female rule and
excessive monarchic power” by representing herself as wife and mother. 2 The work on the
portraits commenced immediately upon Winterhalter’s arrival in England in July, and sittings
for portraits were recorded in the Queen’s Journal between 14 July and 25 August 1843; both
Victoria and Albert were frequently present at each other’s sittings. 3 On 14 July, she
commented on a ‘beautiful sketch’ Winterhalter had made of Albert in crayon and oil directly
onto canvas; on 26 July she recorded Albert’s delight with her portrait; and on 25 August she
remarked that her own portrait was “wonderfully like”, and Albert’s “finished and beautiful.” 4
Once completed, the portraits were placed in the Throne Room at Windsor Castle, where they
have remained ever since. 5
Winterhalter succeeded with his usual ease and panache in creating a monumental
portrait of Queen Victoria (fig. 46). She stands on the elevated dais away from the
foreground of the picture plane and dominates the psychological space of the painting. She
1
They also included a portrait of Victoria and Albert’s eldest daughter Victoria and of Albert’s sisterin-law Alexandrine Fürstin von Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha (both 1842, oil on canvas, HM Queen
Elizabeth II).
2
Homans 1995, 170.
3
Ibid.
4
All references from Queen’s diaries are from Millar 1992, 1:287-88.
5
As sighted by the author, August 2005.
65
confronts the viewers – her subjects – with a direct and imperious gaze. The fashionable
evening gown and personal trinkets of the 1842 portrait have been replaced by heavy
ceremonial garments, a magnificent suite of sumptuous Turkish diamonds, and the State
Diadem with stylised roses, shamrocks, and thistles, symbolic of the Queen’s sovereignty over
the British Isles. Victoria proudly displays the Garter above the left elbow, and regally wears
the voluminous robes of its Order. The Crown and Sceptre on her right, and the Throne on
her left are the traditional symbols of royal power. A heavy curtain in the background is lifted
to reveal a glimpse of Buckingham Palace, the London seat of her power. The artist dwells on
Victoria’s femininity by outlining the delicate silhouette of her neck and effectively contrasting
the dazzling décolleté of her shoulders (of which the Queen was very proud) against the rich
dark crimson of the background curtain. However, the portrait represents a breakaway from
Winterhalter’s characteristic portrayal of women. Such allegorical devices of femininity as
serpentine arrangements of cascading flowers, which we have observed in his earlier portraits
of French princesses (figs. 34 and 37), are absent from this painting. Instead, Winterhalter
endowed Victoria with the masculine symbolism of monarchical power. The erect outlines of
the Queen, the sceptre, the throne, and the palatial colonnade in the background bring an
overall sense of balance and stability to the portrait. She is the embodiment of sovereignty,
the institution of majesty, the continuation of the dynasty, and of the monarchic tradition.
Winterhalter’s pendant portrait of Prince Albert shows him similarly swathed in the
Robes of the Garter, standing full-length, and facing the viewer (fig. 47). The ultimate goal
was likewise to construct the official, semiotic concept of the Prince that conveyed his status
and position to the widest cross-section of the population. However, as will be demonstrated
below, the portrait would have presented Winterhalter with numerous symbolic and
compositional challenges, most of them without precedent in the existing royal iconography.
While royal portraiture in Britain – as well as on the Continent – abounded with
representations of queens consort, portraits of princes consort were rare. This was due
chiefly to the Salic law, which codified the agnatic succession in Continental Europe and
66
essentially barred females from inheriting the throne. 6 The few European princesses who
succeeded under exceptional circumstances as reigning sovereigns, traditionally chose their
husbands from the pool of other reigning monarchs, or promoted their spouses to an equal
status of king - or a nearly equal status of king consort. For example, Emperor Charles IV of
Austria (1685-1740) and King Ferdinand VII of Spain (1784-1833), who had no surviving
sons, changed the law of succession so that the throne could be inherited by their respective
daughters, the celebrated Empress Maria-Theresa of Austria (1717-1780) and Queen Isabel II
of Spain (1830-1904). The female monarchs in turn raised their husbands, Francis Stephen,
Duke of Lorraine (1708-1765), and Francisco de Asis, Infante of Spain (1822-1902), to an
equal sovereign position. 7 The latter, thus elevated, were portrayed alongside their reigning
wives in the full panoply of royal majesty. The British Royal Family, on the other hand,
adhered to the law of succession in order of male primogeniture, which allowed for the
inheritance of the throne by females. Nevertheless, of the five queens regnant prior to Queen
Victoria, Elizabeth I (1533-1603) never married; Mary I Tudor (1516-1558) and Mary II Stuart
(1662-1694) were each married to a king; while the brief reign of Lady Jane Grey (15361554) was not long enough to consider the official status or develop sufficiently the
iconography of her husband, Lord Guilford Dudley (1536-1554). 8 The only other male consort
of a reigning sovereign (who was not a king in his own right) was Prince George of Denmark
(1653-1708), the husband of Queen Anne (1665-1714). His official iconography was scant at
best.
The chronicles of Queen Anne’s reign, who was the last female monarch prior to
Victoria, were indeed consulted to ensure correct procedures during the Coronation, and
corresponding gendered alterations to Parliamentary addresses, liturgical texts, and the royal
precedence. 9 Queen Victoria’s portraitists would have been advised accordingly on the
particulars of the court dress and ceremonial regalia of a female monarch: thus we see
Queen Victoria wearing the Order of the Garter on the left hand above the elbow, in the same
6
Williamson 1988, 75.
See, for example, Wheatcroft 1995, 215-221; and Polnay 1962, 97-124.
8
Piper 1984, passim.
9
Weintraub 1987, 101-102.
7
67
manner in which it was worn by Queen Anne, as opposed to below the left knee as it is
usually worn by male knights of the Order. 10 However, the position of Prince George differed
greatly from that of Prince Albert. Upon his marriage to Anne, George had a royal dukedom
bestowed upon him, which afforded him a seat in the Parliament and on the Privy Council. 11
When Anne succeeded to the British throne, she made her husband Lord High Admiral,
effectively putting George in charge of the royal fleet. 12 The few portraits of George in the
Royal Collection reflected his status accordingly. In a double portrait miniature with Queen
Anne by Charles Boit (1663-1727), George is shown wearing his crimson ducal robes (fig.
48). In the monumental full-length equestrian portrait by Michael Dahl (1659-1743), George
is shown in his full military splendour complete with a chased cuirass and naval flotilla in full
sail in the background (fig. 49). However, Prince George’s iconographic precedents were not
applicable to Winterhalter’s portrait of Prince Albert, as the latter had neither a peerage nor
an actual military command.
In fact, Prince Albert initially had no official status within the complex hierarchy of
British society, which could have inspired the artist’s choice of allegorical or symbolical
allusions within the portrait. Every aspect and facet of Albert’s existence in his new adopted
country was subject to incessant political wranglings between the Queen and her
Parliament. 13 The suggestion that Albert’s official title should be King Consort was flatly
turned down (the alternative title of Prince Consort was not officially granted by the
Parliament until 1857). He was to have no military rank lest he should seek political influence;
he was refused a British peerage lest it entitle him to a seat in the Parliament. 14 His
Naturalisation Bill was hotly contested, having been passed only after its third reading. 15
Despite Albert’s Lutheran faith and the fact that his ancestors sheltered Martin Luther from
Papal persecutions in 1540, dissenting voices even accused him of being a secret Roman
10
“Court and Fashionable Intelligence,” The Court Magazine, 2 July 1837, 89.
Green 1970, 54.
12
Ibid., 56, 94.
13
Cf. Greville 1885, 1:396-406; and Weintraub 1997, 8-11.
14
Greville 1885, 1:402.
15
The Bill was passed on 4 February 1840, while the Prince was already en route from Gotha to
London, and only six days before his wedding. Cf. Greville 1885, 1:396-406; and Weintraub 1997, 17.
11
68
Catholic. 16 His only legal position in England was to be that of a “minor foreign princeling who
happened to be the Queen’s husband.” 17 It would be fair to say that early representations of
Prince Albert reflected these ongoing debates and the uncertainty surrounding his official
status. As the result, they uniformly failed to progress beyond a mere likeness of the Prince.
When it came to state portraiture of monarchs and their spouses, Winterhalter was
not a novice. He had successfully resolved official representations of male sovereigns before,
as can be seen in his portraits of Louis-Philippe, King of the French (fig. 33), and Leopold I,
King of the Belgians (fig. 50). For example, Louis-Philippe d’Orléans, who succeeded to the
French throne after the Revolution of 1830, is shown in Winterhalter’s portrait in a military
uniform. Egalitarian tricolours and the Legion d’Honneur replace traditional royal decorations.
His hand is prominently placed on the Charter of 1830, which illustrates the constitutional
agreement between the King and his people. The crown and sceptre are still present in the
portrait, but they are placed behind the Charter, and recede almost beyond the limits of the
picture plane. 18
Leopold I of the Belgians likewise did not succeed to his sovereign position by
inheritance. Born a Prinz von Sachsen-Coburg-Saalfeld, he was elected by the Belgians as
their constitutional leader after their country gained its independence from the Netherlands in
1831. In his portrait by Winterhalter, Leopold is shown in a Belgian military uniform, and his
most prominent decoration is likewise a Belgian honour, the Grand Cross of the Order of
Leopold I, which is further accentuated in the painting by the corresponding crimson sash. In
both portraits Winterhalter eschewed the traditional representation of kingship, such as heavy
flowing robes and sumptuous ceremonial regalia, arguably in order to illustrate the nonhereditary status of each monarch. The portraits are imbued with realism and modernity,
emphasising the kings’ rule not by the Grace of God but by the will of their people. Their
representations, however, could not have served as direct inspirations for Winterhalter’s
16
To quell the rumours about the Prince’s covert ‘Papism’, Gotha’s protestant church was prominently
featured in the background of George Patten’s portrait. The medieval fortress, which towers over the
horizon, is the place where an ancestor of Prince Albert allegedly hid Martin Luther from Papal
persecution. Cf. “Portraits of Prince Albert,” Bell’s Life, 26 January 1840, 5; and Weintraub 1997, 2, 8.
17
Weintraub 1997, 89.
18
See Marrinan 1988, 14-16, for an important in-depth analysis of this painting.
69
official portrait of Prince Albert, whose military status was honorary rather than factual, and
who owed his position to peace-time dynastic considerations rather than politically-motivated
military upheavals.
Winterhalter’s oeuvre also contains official portraits of female consorts, depicted
either by themselves or with their children, as can be seen in the full-length portrait of
Duchesse d’Orléans with her eldest son, Comte de Paris (fig. 51). Hélène Prinzessin von
Mecklenburg-Schwerin (1814-1858) came to Paris as the bride of the Duc d’Orléans in
1837. 19 She was Prince Albert’s maternal cousin, and in a similar fashion to Prince Albert, her
Lutheranism and Germanic origins were the source of frequent negative comments in French
society. 20 It was perhaps to combat such attitudes through the medium of official portraiture
that the Duchesse d’Orléans is depicted in her portrait surrounded by the markers of her
adopted country. She is dressed in a fashionable Parisian gown with Sévigné folds and rich
valances of French lace, and placed in an interior next to an imposing gilded piece of Boulle
furniture, a well known French palatial heirloom. 21 Most importantly, she is holding the infant
Comte de Paris, the heir to the King of the French. Hélène therefore embodies her position as
the royal wife and mother, furthering and perpetuating the dynastic concerns of the ruling
family of France. If I have mentioned before the dearth of iconographic precedents for the
portrayal of male consorts of a reigning female monarch, to date I have not come across an
official portrait of a male consort with a child semantically equivalent to the portrait of the
Duchesse d’Orléans. Winterhalter did paint portraits of fathers with their children, such as the
delightful portrait of Prince de Wagram with his daughter (fig. 32). However, the latter
painting conveys a feeling of informality and paternal affection rather than a certain sense of
psychological and emotional disassociation between the mother and child, arguably
necessitated by the dynastically-charged depiction of the Duchesse d’Orléans.
19
For the biography of Duchesse d’Orléans, see Orléans 1859, and Schubert 1859, both passim.
Winterhalter, 1987-1988, 184. See also Appendix I, Table 6, for Prince Albert and Duchesse
Hélène’s genealogies.
21
“Description of the Portrait of the Duchess of Orleans,” The Court Magazine, 1 September 1842,
153. I am grateful to Valérie Bajou for pointing out that some of the furniture pieces, depicted in
Winterhalter’s portraits of Louis-Philippe’s family, are still in the collection of the Musée du Château
de Versailles (in conversation with author, April 2007).
20
70
So why did the portrait of Prince Albert, standing by himself and enveloped in the
robes of the Garter, offer a suitable representational solution to the unique iconographic
challenge of portraying a male consort? The Most Noble Order of the Garter is one of the
oldest and most exclusive British orders of knighthood. It was instituted by King Edward III
(1312-1377) around 1348, and is unique to the British monarchy. It is awarded at the
sovereign’s personal discretion to some of the most senior peers of the realm in recognition
of their service to the country, and to foreign heads of state as the marker of close diplomatic
ties. 22 Its exclusivity is one of the most distinguishing characteristics of the Order: at any one
time, the number of Knights of the Order, including the British sovereign and the Prince of
Wales, cannot exceed twenty six. The Garter is bestowed for life, and membership of the
Order only becomes vacant upon the death of a Knight of the Order, at which time a new
award can be issued. Its strict numerical limitation had remained inviolate for more than four
hundred and fifty years until 1805, when George III introduced a purely honorary
companionship to include members of the Royal Family, which did not affect the strict
twenty-six member limit. 23 This supernumerary distinction was extended by the Prince
Regent to the sovereigns of Allied states in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars. 24 By the
time of Queen Victoria’s accession in 1837, the honorary membership was also extended to
lineal descendants of George I, which again did not affect the numerical limitation of full
Knights of the Order. 25
Prince Albert, however, did not fit into any of the above categories. Victoria, in turn,
used her royal prerogative to issue a special statute and confer upon her husband the Order
of the Garter on 16 December 1839. 26 When all other distinctions were refused by the
Parliament to her future husband, this was the only sovereign right the Queen was able to
exercise amidst the increasingly limited powers of a constitutional monarch. Queen Victoria
thus became the first British sovereign, irrespective of gender, to confer the Order of the
Garter on her spouse. By portraying Prince Albert, a young man no older than twenty three,
22
The general information about the Order of the Garter has been compiled from Beltz 1841, passim.
Beltz 1841, cxxxv.
24
Ibid., cxxxviii.
25
Ibid., cxliv.
26
Ibid., cxlvii, and Weintraub 1997, 4.
23
71
wearing the highly recognisable robes and insignia of the Garter, as well as other important
military decorations, such as the collars of the Orders of the Golden Fleece and the Bath,
which under normal circumstances would have been symbolic of a lifetime of achievements,
Winterhalter succeeded in realising a portrait which visually signified a person of power and
consequence, who also enjoyed the proximity and highest regard of the reigning monarch.
It must be mentioned that the first attempt to represent Prince Albert as a Garter
Knight was recorded in March 1840, when Patten was commissioned to paint the Prince in
the robes of the Order (fig. 52). 27 The result was largely unsatisfactory, and when the
painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1840, it was criticised for its lack of regal
dignity. 28 However, Queen Victoria became the first monarch, by default, to have
commissioned matching portraits of the sovereign and his or her spouse in the Garter Robes.
Winterhalter’s portrait of Prince Albert indeed corresponds to its pendant of the Queen both
in the central placement of the full-length figure in contrapposto stance, and the direct
contact with the viewer’s gaze. The portraits have further similarities within the stylised
depictions of background details, and there are also similarities within the overall palette of
the paintings, which are imparted by the dominant colour schemes of the Garter robes,
crimson draperies, and azure skies.
If we were to draw a semantic parallel between this portrait of Prince Albert and the
portrait of the Duchesse d’Orléans discussed above, we can likewise examine this painting as
a calculated depiction of a foreign-born prince representing his adopted country. In other
words, if the Mecklenburg-born Duchesse d’Orléans is painted in valances of French lace to
represent her comme une française, the formal vestments of the Order of the Garter
emphasise the newly-acquired Englishness of the Coburg-born consort. Winterhalter’s portrait
thus forms a powerful visual antithesis to Albert’s first portrait by Patten (fig. 25), which
showed the Prince wearing a Prussian uniform. 29 The portraits of the Duchesse d’Orléans and
Prince Albert, despite their apparent differences, thus converge in their emphasis on the
sitters’ loyalty to their adopted country through the use of clothes, accessories, and
27
“The Court Circular,” The Times, 28 March 1840, 6.
Millar 1992, 1:200-201.
29
28
72
furnishings. This allegiance is further stressed in the Prince’s portrait by the British coat of
arms, woven into the carpet design, and placed at Albert’s feet.
Garter portraits of kings and nobles have had a long and distinguished history in
British portraiture. Examples abound in the Royal Collection, including Lawrence’s Garter
portraits of George III (fig. 53) and Leopold I (fig. 54). Both kings are swathed in the Order’s
distinctive robes of royal blue with crisp white lining; both proudly display the Garter with its
gilded motto below the left knee; while the extravagantly feathered headdress of the Order is
equally prominent. An observation can be made that Garter portraits are compositionally
indebted to official representations of kingship: the full-length stance of the sitters and
cascading folds of their voluminous robes represent the most prominent points of
iconographic similarities. As I will demonstrate below, the point of resemblance was not lost
on royal portraitists, who frequently varied the versions of a ‘Patron Portrait’ to depict the
sitter wearing vestments of State or the Garter as dictated by the occasion or the sitter’s
choice. In 1818 Lawrence painted the Prince Regent resplendent in the robes of the Garter
(fig. 55). Two years later, when the Regent succeeded as George IV in 1820, Lawrence
reworked the same composition and represented the new monarch in the ermine-lined robes
of state (fig. 56). The same can be observed with Queen Victoria’s portraits by Hayter,
though in reverse. A version of his portrait of the Queen in Dalmatic robes of 1838, which
was discussed in the previous chapter (fig. 13), was modified by the artist in 1843 to
represent Victoria in the robes of the Garter (1843, oil on canvas, present location unknown).
It can be argued, therefore, that the very interchangeability of state and Garter robes
around a compositional archetype served as an impetus for constructing an official
representation of Prince Albert as a Garter knight. In other words, if his ill-defined status
prevented the Prince from being portrayed in the regal ermine-lined robes, his Garter
vestments evoked the full panoply of the royal tradition. The installation of Winterhalter’s
portrait of Prince Albert in the Throne Room at Windsor Castle placed the painting
73
thematically as well as physically within the context of other royal representations. 30 It is thus
possible that Winterhalter echoed state and Garter portraits of the Georgian era in his 1843
representation of the Prince Consort. Furthermore, Richard Ormond points to the
compositional similarities between Winterhalter’s portrait and Van Dyck’s representation of
Charles I in the Robes of State, which was also in the Royal Collection at the time (fig. 57). 31
There is indeed a strong correlation between the two with respect to the turn of the body,
the right hand on the hip, and a high balustrade with a prominent central column in the
background.
It can be also argued that Winterhalter may have been inspired by the paintings of
his contemporaries, as can be seen when one examines the compositional semantic parallels
between Winterhalter’s portrait of Prince Albert and Landseer’s double portrait of the Queen
and Prince of 1842 (fig. 58). Queen Victoria commissioned from Landseer a portrait of herself
and the Prince depicting them in the costumes they wore to the Plantagenet Bal Costumé on
12 May 1842. 32 While Landseer’s painting has been widely discussed for its historical and
genealogical implications, 33 its relationship to Winterhalter’s portrait of Prince Albert has been
hitherto overlooked. Landseer depicted the royal couple as their ancient predecessors, Queen
Philippa and King Edward III of England. It is important to remember that the latter was the
founder of the Order of the Garter, the insignia of which is visible on a wall hanging in the
background of the Landseer’s painting. While Victoria/Philippa is shown standing firmly on the
top of the dais, Albert/Edward is shown ascending the dais and offering his hand to the
Queen in a gesture which can be read simultaneously as one of both support and
subordination. Landseer continued labouring on the portrait until 1847, and it is possible that
Winterhalter may have been aware of the work in progress while he was engaged on his
portrait of Prince Albert. If we were to reverse the figure of Prince Albert in Landseer’s
30
The placement of the portrait in the Throne Room of Windsor Castle is mentioned in Millar 1992,
1:288. The portrait still remains in situ, with the pendant of the Queen, as sighted by the author, August
2005.
31
Winterhalter 1987-1988, 38.
32
See Millar 1992, 1:141-2, for further descriptions, details, and reviews of the 1842 Bal Costumé.
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert gave several fancy-dress balls, and their appearance at the
Restoration Ball on 13 July 1851 (dressed as Charles II and Catherine of Braganza) was
commemorated by Winterhalter in a small oil sketch (1851, oil on canvas, HM Queen Elizabeth II).
33
See, for example, Munich 1996, 28-32. See also Van Dyck in Check Trousers 1978, passim, for the
tradition of fancy dress balls in Britain.
74
portrait (fig. 59), the resulting silhouette of the Prince would closely resemble his depiction in
Winterhalter’s portrait, including the three-quarter turn of the body, raised left hand, right
hand on the hip, and, most importantly, the left foot placed on a raised step of the dais. An
examination of the respective stances of the Queen and Prince in Winterhalter’s pendant
portraits also reveals that Winterhalter painted the Queen (just like Landseer) standing firmly
on the podium, the elevation of which can be seen in the lower left hand corner of the
painting. Prince Albert, on the other hand, mirroring his silhouette on Landseer’s canvas, is
shown standing at the foot of the dais, with only the toe of his shoe placed on the carpeted
elevation. It can be argued that such a representation shows Winterhalter’s inability to
escape, whether intentionally or not, from intimating Prince Albert’s subordination to the
Queen. He appears in Winterhalter’s portrait physically and hierarchically on the step below
his august wife. Albert owed his status and position to Victoria, and even his investiture with
the Order of the Garter projected the Queen’s largesse. 34
The anomaly of Queen Victoria’s position as the reigning sovereign and Albert’s
ancillary role as her spouse against the background of the predominantly patriarchal society
of nineteenth-century Britain has been broadly discussed in a number of important recent
feminist studies. 35 There is a general consensus that Prince Albert’s subordinate position
would have been considered as emasculation within the strict gendered hierarchies of
Victorian Britain at the time. If we were to return, albeit briefly, to Winterhalter’s portrait of
the Duchesse d’Orléans, we can observe that the artist constructed the identity of a female
consort by emphasising Hélène’s fecundity and femininity with such symbols as a full-bellied
ovoid vase and the garlands of spilling flowers. The Prince on the other hand firmly grips the
ceremonial Field-Marshal’s baton that prominently rises from his loins; the background of his
portrait is a sturdy cylindrical column; and the Prince’s right foot is emphatically placed near
the vulvic outline of his Queen’s coat of arms. It can be argued that the feminine /
34
Weintraub 1997, 4.
See, for example, Susan P. Casteras, Images of Victorian Womanhood in English Art (Farleigh:
Dickinson University Press, 1987); Margaret Homans, Royal Representations: Queen Victoria and
British Culture, 1837-1876 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 1-32; Margaret Homans and
Adrienne Munich, eds., Remaking Queen Victoria (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997);
and Adrienne Munich, Queen Victoria’s Secrets (Washington DC: Columbia University Press, 1998).
35
75
subordinate qualities of a female consort have been counterbalanced in Albert’s portrait as a
male consort with the symbols of phallic dominance.
Within these two portraits, Winterhalter successfully - and respectfully - reversed the
gendered traditions of royal iconography. Prince Albert’s Robes of the Garter visually manifest
a person of power and consequence, and the close proximity and friendly regard of the
monarch. The baton and insignias unmistakeably point to the elevated status of the sitter,
while the voluminous folds cascading onto the carpet form a visual link to official
representations of kingship - iconographic devices which were still current in the nineteenth
century as seen in portraits of George IV by Lawrence and of William IV by Shee discussed
above. The Garter’s motto, Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense, can be read as an illustrative reference
to the Garter portrait, and as an indirect and symbolic reference to Prince Albert’s unique and
uneasy position within the societal and gendered hierarchies of Victorian Britain. 36
Despite Queen Victoria’s satisfaction with the portraits and their significance as the
first important pair of official, pendant representations of the Queen and Prince Albert, she
still appeared to have been cautious at this time about publicly acknowledging her increasing
patronage of a foreign artist. The palace-controlled Court Circular remained silent about
Winterhalter’s activities at Court until the middle of the 1840s. While Hayter’s progress on the
Queen’s portrait in Garter Robes for the King of Prussia was minutely recorded between
January and March of 1843, no mention was made of the Garter portraits of the Queen and
Prince by Winterhalter, which were being painted between July and August of the same
year. 37 The Queen’s ‘gracious approvals’ of lithographs and engravings after her portraits by
British artists were also continually recorded, while those after Winterhalter’s works went
unmentioned in the Court Circular, perhaps deliberately censored by the Royal agency until at
least the middle of the 1840s. While copies of Winterhalter’s 1843 Garter portraits were
commissioned for close family members and selected foreign heads of state, the wider
distribution of these images, as well as the production of engravings after them, did not
36
The motto of the Order of the Garter, which is visible on all insignias of the order, approximately
translates as “Shame on him who thinks ill of it”.
37
“Court Circular,” The Times, 20 January 1843, 4.
76
commence until 1847. 38 The Court Circular continued to report that Queen Victoria and Prince
Albert sat to British artists, like Sir Francis Grant (1803-78), Frederick Newenham (1807-59),
and John Partridge at least until 1845. The entries in the Queen’s Journal and the
reminiscences of her entourage at the time reflect the Queen’s increasing frustration with the
length and number of the sittings, which were further compounded by indifferent or negative
responses from the press when these portraits were shown at the Royal Academy. 39 The
study of the Queen’s iconography reflects this frustration and shows that from approximately
1845 onwards all requests for portraits of the royal couple were responded to with the
presentations of copies after Winterhalter’s portraits, the only official depictions of herself and
the Prince of which Queen Victoria wholeheartedly approved. 40
“Still Beaming with Beauty Ripened by Thirty and Seven Years”:
Portrait Watercolours of 1855
Winterhalter continued coming to Britain regularly, completing for the Queen an
impressive array of commissions, which ranged from such imposing large-scale compositions
as The Royal Family of 1846 (fig. 69), to intimate depictions like the 1847 watercolour sketch
of three of Victoria’s children (fig. 70). The French Revolution of 1848 left Winterhalter
without his major patrons, the French Royal Family. Having witnessed the destruction of his
paintings at the Palais des Tuileries and the Royal Family’s country estates, the artist had
wisely chosen to leave France. 41 He worked extensively in Belgium, Germany, and
Switzerland, and painted prolifically for Queen Victoria in Britain. She commissioned from him
portraits of her children in various formats and configurations, of her relations near and far,
38
For the list of known copies (to date) see Appendix II, nos 3 and 4. Portraits were engraved by
Atkinson, and published by Moon in 1847. Cf. “Court Circular,” The Times, 19 Mar 1847, 6.
39
See, for example, the letter by Hon. Eleanor Stanley, to her father, Mr Edward Stanley, Windsor
Castle, 24 March 1845; quoted in Stanley 1916, 286.
40
See, for example, the examination of the portraits in the collection of HM Queen Elizabeth II in
Millar 1992, passim.
41
On the destruction of works of art, including portraits by Winterhalter, at the Palais de Tuileries
during the February Revolution in 1848, see “The French Republic,” The Times, 21 April 1851, 8, and
at the Château de Neuilly, see Joinville 1895, 21-4.
77
and of her courtiers and favourite ladies-in-waiting. Winterhalter gave her painting lessons, 42
and even painted for her selected members of the exiled Orléans family, who were given
shelter by the Queen. 43 The artist returned to Paris in 1849, and gradually re-established his
portrait practice. From 1852, Winterhalter began receiving regular commission from the new
French sovereigns, Emperor Napoleon III and Empress Eugénie (figs. 60 and 61), and he
soon became the official iconographer of the Second Empire. The imperial couple had no
qualms about employing the artist who had served the previous political regime: as the artist
Eugène Lami famously quipped about the nature of fashionable portraiture, “Les souverains
changent, mais les épaules des femmes restent!” 44 Winterhalter’s paintings reappeared at the
Salon, and his celebrated portrayal of the Empress of the French surrounded by her ladies-inwaiting became the focal point of the Exposition Universelle in 1855 (fig. 62). 45
Nevertheless, Winterhalter continued honouring his annual commitments to Queen
Victoria, and during his brief sojourn in London in June 1855, the artist completed for the
Queen a pair of watercolour portraits of herself and Prince Albert (figs. 63 and 64). Highly
finished portrait watercolours like these are rare in Winterhalter’s oeuvre, as the artist seldom
did studies for his paintings, preferring to paint alla prima. 46 Winterhalter’s watercolour
albums show that the artist was quite proficient with the medium. He used it in his
sketchbooks as a visual diary, quickly recording landscapes and places he had visited, or
humorous situations and anecdotes he had witnessed. 47 According to Delia Millar, the pair of
1855 portrait watercolours mentioned above was specifically commissioned by Queen Victoria
for one of her Portrait Albums. 48 Therefore, the genesis of these works, as well as the
absence of portraits in oils based on these watercolours, further proves that they were
42
Roberts 1987, 109-111.
See Barilo von Reisberg 2007, 66, 71, 83, and 84 for the portraits of the children of Prinz and
Prinzessin August von Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha, which were painted between 1848 and 1851.
44
Quoted in Millar 1995, 1:508. Winterhalter’s patronage by the French Imperial Family and their
court is discussed in detail in Mainardi 1987, and Zuther 2009, both passim.
45
See Salon exhibition catalogues 1849-1853, and Barilo von Reisberg 2007, 65-88.
46
On Winterhalter’s painting techniques, see Janin 1844, 68-69; as well as entries in Queen Victoria’s
diaries as quoted in Millar 1992, 1:286.
47
For an example of Winterhalter’s album of watercolours, see Sotheby’s London, Important British
Watercolours, 5 June 2008, lot 165.
48
Millar 1995, 2:930-31.
43
78
commissioned as stand-alone pieces for a specific purpose and a specific site in mind, and not
as preparatory studies for later portraits.
The depiction of the Queen and Prince at just over half-length imparts a sense of
intimacy with the sitters. These watercolours are imbued with a feeling of informality that
links them semantically to the earlier three-quarter-length likenesses of the Queen and Prince
of 1842, rather than the opulent exercises in official portraiture of 1843. This is not
accidental: as mentioned above, these watercolours were intended to be placed in one of
Queen Victoria’s albums of watercolours, which Victoria had been assembling continuously
and painstakingly over a number of years. 49 Therefore, the intended audience for these
works was Victoria and Albert’s entourage as well as important guests of the royal couple,
who were honoured with private showings of the Queen’s albums.
The Queen is represented in a gown of green taffeta edged with lace; a white gauze
wrap is thrown over her arms, while a ruby and pearl suite of a tiara, multi-strand pearl
necklace, brooch, and bracelet comprise her distinctive but unostentatious jewellery. The blue
ribbon of the Garter with the badge of the Order (partly hidden by her hand) is the only
marker of the royal status of the sitter. The Queen is holding a small sheaf of papers. Given
the informal context of the watercolour, it is more suggestive of private correspondence
rather than the official travails of the Head of State as can be seen in the portraits by
Partridge (fig. 26) or Grant (1843, oil on canvas, HM Queen Elizabeth II). Queen Victoria was
indeed a prolific writer. The extensive number of letters in the Royal Archives at Windsor
Castle, as well as a number of published compendiums of her correspondence, illustrates her
prowess in the epistolary genre. 50
Prince Albert is represented in the Field-Marshal’s uniform, and in addition to the
ribbons and badges of the Orders of the Garter, Bath, and the Golden Fleece, which we have
observed in the earlier portraits of the Prince, he is also wearing the House Order of Sachsen49
Ibid., 1:35.
Published compendiums of Queen Victoria’s correspondence are too numerous to list. The most
relevant to these study are Queen Victoria, Queen Victoria in her Letters and Journals, ed. Christopher
Hibbert (London: Viking, 1984); Queen Victoria, Letters of Queen Victoria, ed. Lord Esher (London:
Murray, 1911); Queen Victoria and Victoria, Crown Princess of Prussia, Your Dear Letter, 1865-71,
ed. Roger Fulford (London: Evans Bros, 1971); idem., Darling Child, 1871-1878, (London: Evans
Bros, 1976); idem., Beloved Mama: Private correspondence of Queen Victoria and the German Crown
Princess, 1878-1885 (London: Evans, 1981).
50
79
Ernest. In spite of the fact that the Prince was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order in 1836,
this is the first time in Winterhalter’s oeuvre that Albert is shown with an award of his own
native duchy. 51 This is a subtle but significant departure from the Prince’s depiction in the
1843 Garter portrait, where Albert is shown enveloped from head to toe in the outward signs
of Englishness. It can be suggested that because this portrait was intended for the audience
of the royal couple’s intimate but cosmopolitan circle, there was less concern about the
depiction of Albert’s foreign decorations. As the result, Albert is shown intertwining the
signifiers of his native and adopted countries through the use of their respective highest
orders.
The popularisation of these works occurred quite by accident. Winterhalter painted
them on sheets of paper that proved to be too large for the Queen’s albums, and the
watercolours were framed independently. 52 It is possible that these works attracted positive
comments from the royal entourage, which in turn may have influenced the Queen’s decision
to extend the audience of these portraits. Approximately a year after their execution, the
watercolours were lithographed by Lane. 53 Their publication in June of 1856 met with an
unexpectedly enthusiastic popular and critical reception. Lloyds Weekly directly complimented
the artist, declaring the works to be “highly creditable to the talent of Winterhalter, who is
the privileged foreigner invested almost with a monopoly of the royal features.” 54 However,
the praise continued indirectly: the emphasis in the reviews was placed on the mimetic
qualities and corporeality of the portraits, as if they were not creations of an artist’s hand but
obtained with the mechanical process of photography. This is a further testament to
Winterhalter’s superior abilities in the realm of portraiture. Lloyds Weekly concentrated on the
feminine emphasis within the portrait of the Queen, who again appeared in her portrait
wearing a low décolleté dress, showing off her elegant neck, sloping shoulders, and bare
51
The Herzoglich Sachsen-Ernestischer Hausorden was instituted on 25 December 1833 for the
sovereign Duchy of Sachsen-Gotha-Altenburg, and after the redistribution of lands and the subsequent
formation of Sachsen-Altenburg, Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha, and Sachsen-Meiningen, remained the
highest decoration of all three duchies, awarded at the discretion of their respective reigning
sovereigns. Thus Prince Albert’s father Ernest I (1784-1844) and brother Ernest II (1818-1893) von
Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha, were ‘Großmeistern’ of the Order and were entitled to confer the award.
Cf. Adress-Handbuch 1854, 23-25, 36, 159.
52
Millar 1995, 1:930-31.
53
See Appendix II.
54
“Fine Arts,” Lloyds Weekly Newspaper, 13 April 1856, 5.
80
arms. The reviewer described Victoria as “still beaming with beauty ripened by seven and
thirty years.” 55 Bell’s Life echoed this opinion when observing the differences in the physical
appearance of the monarch between her earlier representations and the current portrait as
being “more majestic and, if we may be allowed the term, more matronly.” 56 St James’s
Medley emphasised not only the likeness in the portrait, but also “the womanly grace [and]
the commanding carriage of England’s Lady Sovereign”. 57 If the media responses to the
portrait of Victoria exuded reverence and respect, the examination of Prince Albert’s portrait
could not disguise an underlying satirical note. Lloyds Weekly posited that Albert was
presented in “a very comfortable aspect, as though the air of England and his pay of FieldMarshal mightily agreed with him.” 58 Bell’s Life likewise opined that the Prince Consort had
“not fallen off in condition during the last few years.” 59 The writer for St James’s Medley
further urged those readers who “have not yet adorned their rooms with a portrait of our
Gracious Queen,” to purchase these portraits on account of the faithful likeness and their
high quality. 60 The Examiner echoed this opinion by elaborating upon “the scale which does
not make them too expensive for the multitude of good subjects who… are continually
impelled by loyalty to a desire to hang up the Royal Family.” 61
References to reproductions of royal portraits through copies, miniatures, and prints
have formed a recurrent refrain throughout this thesis. Queen Victoria was extremely active
in the dissemination of her own images. Once Winterhalter began producing successful
likenesses of the monarch and her family, they were multiplied ad infinitum. She employed
several professional copyists to reproduce the royal images to scale and in miniature to be
placed throughout her residences, given to relatives and friends in Britain and abroad, and
set into pieces of wearable jewellery. 62 They were also exchanged as diplomatic gifts with
55
Ibid.
“The Arts,” Bell’s Life, 6 April 1856, 2.
57
“Lithographic portraits of the Queen [and] Prince Albert,” The St James’s Medley, 1856, 549-60.
58
“Fine Arts,” Lloyds Weekly Newspaper, 13 April 1856, 5.
59
“The Arts,” Bell’s Life, 6 April 1856, 2.
60
The St James’s Medley, 1856, op. cit.
61
“The Fine Arts,” The Examiner, 12 April 1856, 4.
62
The research shows that Alexander Melville (fl. 1843-1886) and George Koberwein (1820-1876)
were among the artists, who were most frequently employed by the Queen in the production of copies
after Winterhalter’s portraits. Sir William Charles Ross, William Corden (1819-1900), William Essex
56
81
other heads of state. When placed in British legations and agencies of the Empire abroad, the
portraits embodied the sovereign, under whose munificence and in whose name official
business was to be transacted. Reproductions of these portraits through the relatively
affordable medium of lithography also meant that the images of the British sovereign and her
family were now within the reach of the widest cross-section of the population within Britain
and its farthest imperial outposts. The Palace had formed strategic business partnerships with
publishing houses and employed the best engravers and lithographers of the day to ensure
the quality reproductions of the Queen’s portraits in print. 63 The examination of advertising
sections of newspapers in Britain as well as throughout the British Empire shows that the
dealing in royal portraits after Winterhalter enjoyed a brisk trade in all tiers of the nineteenthcentury art market. 64 Winterhalter’s original portraits (or high quality copies after his works)
were lent to commercial galleries to promote their reproductions in print and encourage sales
of the latter. In the words of one reviewer, “Winterhalter originally produced [these] most
striking portraits, which now adorn the Royal residence; whilst Mr. Lane has enabled the
public generally to become possessed of copies at a trifling cost.” 65 The official state portraits
of Queen Victoria proliferated through private residences of the upper echelons of society as
well as humble homes of the working classes. They thus represented the monarch to the
millions of her subjects across the vast outreaches of the Empire, who may never have seen
their sovereign in person. 66 They inspired awe and loyalty, reaffirmed the primacy of the
monarchy, and became one of the cornerstones of the national identity to the multitude of
(1784-1869), and John Simpson (1782-1847) produced for the Queen and Prince Albert a number of
miniatures after Winterhalter’s portraits. Cf. Barilo von Reisberg 2007, passim, and Appendix II.
63
These include, among others, the above-mentioned Richard James Lane and Samuel Cousins, whose
names likewise appear most frequently in the lists of artists who were engaged in the productions of
engravings and lithographs after Winterhalter’s royal portraits. See ibid. Examination of the classified
sections of British newspapers shows that the London-based firm of Colnaghi’s in Pall-Mall was most
frequently engaged as the primary market dealer in prints of royal portraits from Winterhalter’s
paintings.
64
See the previous note. This observation is likewise based on the examination of the classified
sections of British (and Australian) newspapers from the 1840s to the 1860s.
65
The St James’s Medley, 1856.
66
For example, Queen Victoria sent copies of her portraits by Winterhalter to her former lady-inwaiting, Lady Canning, the wife of Lord Canning, Viceroy of India (Canning 1975, 222); another set of
portraits left for Canada with the Queen’s daughter, Princess Louise, whose husband, the Marquis of
Lorne, was Governor-General of Canada from 1878 to 1883 (Wake 1988, 212-25). I have also come
across a number of copies after Winterhalter’s portraits of the Queen and Prince in Australia while
preparing “Representing the Empire” (paper presented at the British Empire and Visual Culture
Symposium, the University of Melbourne, 1-2 October 2009).
82
the culturally and religiously diverse subjects of Queen Victoria’s Empire. The production and
distribution of her images for personal, political, diplomatic, and propagandist purposes
played an important part in Queen Victoria’s performance of her royal duties and in the
continued visibility of the British Monarchy.
“The Ease and Dignity of the Attitude”: Official Portraits of 1859
In 1858, Queen Victoria decided to commission from Winterhalter another set of fulllength state portraits. 67 More than fifteen years had elapsed since the completion of the first
set of official representations of 1843, and the unanticipated success and overwhelmingly
positive public reception of the 1855 watercolours suggested that there was a demand for
another full-length set of official royal representations. In the late 1850s, Winterhalter was at
the zenith of his fame. 68 The end of the Crimean War in 1856 had brought the end of political
and diplomatic hostilities between France and Russia, and French borders were re-opened to
the opulently wealthy Russian and Polish aristocrats. 69 They flocked to Winterhalter’s studio,
and vied for his attention with the beauties of the French Imperial court. The novelist
Alexander Dumas (1802-1870) gave a glimpse of Winterhalter’s celebrity status when he
wrote in 1859, that “all ladies dream of adorning their boudoirs with a portrait painted by
Winterhalter… [They] wait their turn for months to gain an entry into the atelier [of the
artist]; they write their names down, they all have their sequential numbers and wait - one
would wait a year, one - eighteen months, and another up to two years.” 70 The crowned
heads were given priority, and Queen Victoria was no exception. However, more than a year
had elapsed before Winterhalter was able to clear his schedule for another sojourn in
England. The artist arrived in London in the spring of 1859, and sittings for the portraits
commenced from 9 May. The wait for Winterhalter was worth the Queen’s while, and in less
67
Millar 1992, 1:296.
See, for example, Salon exhibition catalogues from 1855 to 1859, and Barilo von Reisberg 2007,
101-125.
69
As stated in a letter from Countess Marie Przezdziecka (1823-1890), née Gräfin von Tiesenhausen. I
am grateful to Françoise Maison, conservateur-en-chef, Musée du Château de Compiègne, for bringing
this correspondence to my attention (Compiègne / Maison Correspondence, 22 August 2003).
70
Quoted in Kalitina 1985, 123-4.
68
83
than three months, two large-scale portraits, each measuring nearly 2.5 metres high by 1.5
metres wide, were nearing completion. By 21 June 1859 Queen Victoria was able to describe
them in her diary as “all but finished and magnificent” (figs. 65 and 66). 71
In her portrait, Queen Victoria is depicted at Buckingham Palace, seated, her right
foot resting on a gilded tabouret. The cascading folds of her crimson and ermine-lined Robes
of State and the fluttering swathes of burgundy curtains add to the sense of movement and
the awe-inspiring feeling of grandeur within the painting. Though the portrait can be related
to other seated portraits of women by the artist, also at half-turn, and with a similar
positioning of their arms, such as that of Eugénie, Empress of the French, of 1855 (fig. 67),
or of Princess Tatiana Youssoupova of 1858 (fig. 68), the portrait of Queen Victoria remains
unique in Winterhalter’s work, inasmuch as there is no other official portrait of a seated
sovereign in his oeuvre. Empress Eugénie was the consort of Napoleon III, an influential
figure in French society, and the acknowledged leader of style and fashion. 72 Princess
Youssoupova belonged to one of Russia’s richest aristocratic families, whose wealth was
reputedly second only to the Romanovs. 73 In a similar manner to the Queen, they rise
effortlessly and majestically above the sheer expanse of their voluminous crinoline skirts. The
faultless veneer of their alabaster skin emphasises their femininity. However, none can match
the powerful resolve expressed by Winterhalter in the portrait of Queen Victoria with the
forceful turn of the shoulders towards the viewer, and her firm grasp of the arm of the chair.
Winterhalter eschewed painting Victoria as a romantic fairy-tale queen, and constructed the
image of a thoroughly modern monarch and a symbol of empowered femininity. She has
been interrupted from the process of studying government papers, and stares at the viewer
with a glance that is direct and unnerving, questioning and piercing.
The Queen’s sumptuous decorations are comprised of the Crown jewels recently reset
for her by the royal jewellers, Garrard’s. 74 They include massive drop earrings and a diamond
necklace, three large bow brooches descending to her waist, and a large gold and diamond
71
Millar 1992, 1:296.
On Empress Eugénie, see Turnbull 1974, passim.
73
On Princess Tatiana Yousoupova, see Youssoupov 1952 and Youssoupov 1991, passim.
74
Millar 1992, 1:298.
72
84
bracelet on her right hand. She is the personification of the wealth and prosperity of her
nation. In addition to the State Diadem, seen in the Queen’s 1843 Garter portrait, which
displays stylised emblems of England, Scotland, and Wales, the Queen is also wearing a large
brooch set with the famous Koh-i-noor diamond. The history and significance of the diamond,
its relationship to Duleep Singh, the dispossessed Maharajah of Lahore, and the centrality of
the Maharajah and the jewel in the ongoing debate about the nature of colonial identity have
been broadly covered by recent scholarship. 75 It should suffice to recall for the purpose of
this study that the famous diamond was the young Maharajah’s heirloom. The Indian child
prince and his jewel were brought to England in the aftermath of the Pubjab uprising of 1849.
The diamond was presented to Queen Victoria, who also took an active interested in the
upbringing of Duleep Singh, and commissioned Winterhalter to paint a striking portrait of him
in 1854 (fig. 71). The public was aware of the diamond’s existence and exotic provenance,
and its display in a gilded cage at the Great Exhibition of 1851 proved to be among the
exhibition’s chief attractions. 76 The diamond was eventually set in a brooch, which is worn by
the Queen in Winterhalter’s portrait at the top of her bodice. If the State Diadem is symbolic
of her sovereignty over the British Isles, the inclusion of the famous Indian diamond in a
state portrait could be interpreted as the indicator of her Imperial power over the British
dominions beyond the seas, the Queen’s rule of the Empire upon which the sun never sets.
The most important piece of the royal regalia, the Imperial Crown, is placed to the Queen’s
right. It is silhouetted against the Palace of Westminster, the seat of the British Parliament,
which is seen in the background through the open window. It serves as a visual reminder of
her contemporary role as a constitutional monarch, a trope of her connection with the people
through her government, which at once controls and empowers her sovereign rights. As
Homans summed up: “Parliamentary bills … will not become law without her signature, yet
75
See, for example, Michael Alexander and Sushila Anand, Queen Victoria’s Maharajah (London:
Taplinger, 1980); Brian Keith Axel, The Nation’s Tortured Body (Durham: Duke University Press,
2001); Tony Ballantyne, Between Colonialism and Diaspora (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006);
Christy Campbell, The Maharajah’s Box (London: Harper Collins, 2001); The Raj, exhib. cat., ed. C.A.
Bayly (London: National Portrait Gallery, 1994).
76
“The Front Row of the Shilling Gallery,” Punch, July 1851 [n/p].
85
she is compelled to sign… Powerful by law yet physically immobilised… in command of the
nation’s laws, she is also physically contained by them.” 77
When creating the official portrait of Prince Albert, Winterhalter once again could not
rely on the prescribed iconography of state portraiture as seen, for example, in his pendant
portraits of Emperor Napoleon III and Empress Eugénie of the French of 1853 (figs. 60 and
61), or slightly later portraits of King Wilhelm I and Queen Augusta of Prussia of 1861 (figs.
72 and 73). 78 Winterhalter emphasises in these paintings the centrally placed full-length
figures of the monarchs and their spouses. Men are depicted in uniform, women in
ceremonial evening gowns. Ermine-lined robes are either cascading from their shoulders or
flagrantly thrown over their thrones. The regalia is prominently visible in the background of
their portraits, and heraldic symbolism is incorporated into the design of the draperies and
dress fabrics. Landscape views of their palatial gardens are indicative of their physical and
symbolic ownership of the land. Yet in the 1859 portrait of Prince Albert, the Garter Robes,
which provided an iconographic link to the traditional state portraiture, no longer appear. So,
what had aided Winterhalter in conceptualising this new public representation of the Prince?
Prince Albert lived his life in the public arena. He was not content to be an idle royal
consort, but actively engaged in the social sphere, welfare, progress, education, the arts and
sciences. He chaired numerous committees, was present as the guest of honour at official
openings and dedications, and frequently represented his Queen in absentia. 79 One of his
greatest achievements and most significant contributions was the Great Exhibition of the
Works of Industry of all Nations, held at the purpose-built Crystal Palace from 1 May to 15
October 1851. His leadership and contribution in organising the event, as well as the
examination of the significance and a wider implication of the Great Exhibition in Britain and
internationally, has been covered in Prince Albert’s biographies and in stand-alone
77
Homans 1998, xxiv.
Sadly, all four original portraits had been lost – the first pair, formerly at the Palais des Tuileries, was
destroyed during the French Commune of 1871, and the second pair, formerly at the Royal Palace in
Berlin, was destroyed during the Second World War (cf. Bernard 1975, 74). Numerous copies in oils
and prints exist to relay the iconographic construct of these pictures. Cf. Barilo von Reisberg 2007, 8990, nos. 475-476; and 128-129, nos. 705-706.
79
See numerous references to Prince Albert as ‘surrogate’ for his Queen in Weintraub 1997, passim.
78
86
publications. 80 Its study is beyond the scope of this thesis. However, it should be mentioned
that it was commemorated by Winterhalter in the allegorically-rich group portrait, The First of
May, 1851, where Prince Albert is shown with Queen Victoria, the Duke of Wellington, and
the infant Prince Arthur (fig. 74). 81 In the painting, Albert is seen holding the blueprints for
the Great Exhibition, while glancing over his shoulder towards Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace
in the Hyde Park grounds.
Prince Albert’s every move was scrutinised by the press, from the objective reporting
in The Times to satirical interpretations of his travails in Punch. The list of honours and
decorations, which were conferred upon Prince Albert by his devoted wife and the grateful
institutions under his patronage, occupied more than half a page in the 1859 edition of the
Lodge’s Peerage and Baronetage of the British Empire:
… K.G. [Knight of the Garter], Grand Master of the Order of the Bath, K.P. [Knight of St
Patrick], and G.C.M.G. [Grand Cross of St Michael and St George]; Field-Marshal in the
Army, Colonel of the Grenadier Guards, Colonel-in-Chief of the Rifle Brigade, P.C.,
Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, Lord Warden of the Stannaries, and Chief
Steward of the Duchy on Cornwall, Governor and Constable of Windsor Castle, Ranger
of Windsor Great Park, Master of the Trinity House, Captain General of the Hon.
Artillery Company of London, and Lord High Seward of Plymouth and of Windsor,
[etc]… 82
Punch published a less reverent overview of Prince Albert’s multifarious activities, which it
summed up with a cartoon (fig. 75) and a satirical verse:
… Ready, all hours, at the call of the nation,
From botheration ne’er am I free;
I am a Prince that’s in full occupation,
80
The most relevant to this study are Ames 1968; Darby and Smith 1983; Martin 1877; and Weintraub
1997.
81
See Barilo von Reisberg 2007, 81, for the comprehensive list of bibliography on this painting.
82
Lodge 1859, lxxi.
87
As I’m certain you all with agree… [sic] 83
Last but not least, after more than seventeen years of being married to the Queen of
England, and living in his adopted country, the Prince was finally granted by the Parliament
on 26 June 1857 the official title of Prince Consort, by which he was henceforth known. 84 It is
possible that this event served as another impetus behind the Queen’s (and perhaps Prince
Albert’s) wish to commemorate this momentous occasion with the new set of official portraits,
which would allow the Queen to appear in all her iconic splendour, while the Prince Consort
would require his own iconographic construct to reflect within a painting his life and
achievements in his adopted country.
Whereas the Queen’s portrait is a classic example of state portraiture, that of Prince
Albert is, once again, “a carefully devised official statement”. 85 Prince Albert is painted
standing, full-length, at Buckingham Palace, in the dark uniform of the Colonel of the Rifle
Brigade, and facing the viewer. His figure corresponds with more assertive stances given by
Winterhalter to his male sitters from the mid-1850s onwards, such as the portrait of Edouard
André of 1857 (fig. 77) and the lost portrait of Emperor Alexander II of Russia of the same
year (fig. 78). It also echoes the composition of Winterhalter’s half-length watercolour of the
Prince of 1855, which displayed a similar en face of the head, turn of the torso, and semiraised elbow. Prince Albert appears much older than a man just shy of his fortieth birthday,
but this appearance matches contemporary descriptions of the Prince. 86 The star and ribbon
of the Garter and the badge of the Golden Fleece comprise the main decorations on his chest.
Albert’s dark erect figure is effectively silhouetted against the busy and colourful background,
where the satin crimson mantle of the Order of the Bath is cascading diagonally across the
picture plane. Like an allegorical cornucopia, it is spilling orders, decorations, books, maps,
and albums illustrative of his achievements and attainments. The chain of the Order of the
Bath is intertwined with that of the Golden Fleece, indicative of the British and international
83
“Prince Albert at Home,” Punch, 20 March 1847, 118. The original spelling of the verse has been
preserved.
84
Weintraub 1997, 337-339.
85
Millar 1992, 1:xxvi.
86
Weintraub 1997, 368-369.
88
honours conferred upon the Prince. Books and manuscripts that weigh heavily on the table
are symbolic of his multifarious interests, the active involvement with the institutions and
committees under his patronage, many of which he had chaired. Unfurling plans, which spill
over the edge of the table, echo the blueprints of the Paxton’s Crystal Palace which Albert is
seen holding in his hands in Winterhalter’s above-mentioned painting, The First of May, 1851
(fig. 74). The albums and portfolios are illustrative of his passion as an active collector and
patron of the arts, which was well known at the time, and much discussed by Prince Albert’s
biographers. 87 Resting on a green tabouret on the left hand side of the picture is perhaps one
of Albert’s most curious inventions – the shako, a military hat with its distinctive tall cylindrical
shape, a short visor, and a plume, which was famously lampooned by Punch (fig. 76).
As mentioned previously, Prince Albert lived his life in the public eye; his every move,
every invention, every contribution being minutely monitored and scrutinised. It can be
argued that Winterhalter, through his close interactions with the Royal Family and frequent
visits to Britain, would have known every detail of Prince Albert’s active public role, which he
encapsulated within this iconographically complex portrait, being confident that the equallyaware public would be able to decipher it. Direct references to Prince Albert’s contentious
involvement with politics and the government are carefully avoided in this painting. Charles
Greville, for example, had commented as early as 1845:
The Prince has become so identified with the Queen that they are one person,
and as he likes business, it is obvious that while she has the title he is really
discharging the functions of the Sovereign. He is King to all intents and
purposes. I am not surprised at this, but certainly was not aware that it had
taken such a definitive shape. 88
87
The newspapers frequently reported on Prince Albert’s purchases from the Royal Academy and the
British Institutions. Ames also commented upon the collecting ‘streak’ among Prince Albert’s relatives
and ancestors (Cf. Ames 1968, 2-3), while Millar’s survey of the Royal Collection shows that major
pieces of contemporary British art and Old Masters, which were acquired during the Victorian era, had
been purchased during the Prince’s lifetime (Cf. Millar 1992, 1:xv-lxi; and Millar 1977, 163-196.)
88
Greville 1885, 2:323.
89
Therefore, there is neither the Palace of Westminster in the background of his picture, nor
political documents and official seals on his table. The background landscape, seen through a
Buckingham Palace window, is perhaps a glimpse of Hyde Park, the site of the Crystal Palace
exhibition. This detail of the painting could be thus interpreted as another semantic link to the
Prince’s important connection to that famous event of 1851. 89
Upon completion of the portraits, the Queen took a rather radical step and had them
photographed for immediate distribution. 90 As the originals were set into the walls of
Buckingham Palace, copies were commissioned without delay from Charles Edward
Boutibonne (1816-97), to be lent to promotional exhibitions in galleries and printing
establishments throughout Britain and Ireland, where they were shown alongside full-length
engravings after these paintings by William Henry Simmonds (1811-82) and head-andshoulder lithographs by John Alfred Vinter (c.1828-1905). 91 The response from the press was
once again positive and enthusiastic. 92 The Era found the portraits to be “speaking
likenesses”, 93 and even considered the portrait of the Prince as the better of the two,
commenting on “the ease and dignity of the attitude,” and describing the painting as “the
perfection of vigour and repose.” 94 Boutibonne’s copies of Winterhalter’s portraits were also
lent to the extravagant international and colonial exhibitions which toured the British
dominions from the end of the nineteenth century. 95 These portraits were given pride of
place within the exhibition space, and frequently a podium or canopy was especially
constructed to accommodate them; velvet ropes were used to set them apart from the main
body of the exhibition. 96 Last but not least, in 1867 Winterhalter was commissioned by the
Queen to produce a replica of his 1859 portrait of Prince Albert, which she then gave to
89
I am indebted to Dr Alison Inglis for the lively debate, which had inspired this interpretation of the
background view through the window in Prince Albert’s portrait.
90
Millar 1992, 1:296.
91
For the listings of copies, engravings and lithographs after these portraits, see Barilo von Reisberg
2007, 116-117, and Appendix II, nos. 7 and 8.
92
Notices of the portraits had appeared in periodicals in London, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Glasgow,
Belfast, etc.
93
“Royal Portraits,” The Era, 20 November 1859, 12.
94
“Fine Arts,” The Era, 19 May 1861, 3.
95
See, for example, exhibition catalogues of Dublin 1853, Colonial Exhibition 1886, Dunedin 1889-90,
International Exhibition 1876 and 1879-81, London 1862 and 1892, and others.
96
“Art Treasures Exhibition,” The Argus (Melbourne), 2 April 1869, 4.
90
London’s National Portrait Gallery. 97 It became a focal point after the gallery’s rehang of
1882, where it was displayed above the letters of the Earl Stanhope (1805-1875) to Prince
Albert regarding the foundation of the National Portrait Gallery, and Prince Albert’s reply
“approving of the scheme.” 98
The commissioning from Winterhalter of a replica of Prince Albert’s 1859 portrait is a
further testimony to the Queen’s appreciation of the artist’s superiority in the mimetic and
symbolic conceptualisation of her husband. It can be argued, therefore, that Winterhalter’s
portraits
established
an
overall
iconographic
precedent
for
Albert’s
posthumous
representations. Winterhalter paved the way in combining the depictions of the Prince as an
independent individual through the visual signifiers of his honours and achievements, while at
the same time showing Prince Albert as the surrogate for his Queen and her agency.
Winterhalter’s portrayal of Prince Albert, which inventively intertwined the traditions of royal
iconography and the artist’s own innovations within the context of the genre, ensured that
subsequent posthumous images of Albert commemorated the Prince and inextricably
reminded one of Victoria and her Empire. In spite of her reclusiveness from the social and
political arena during the early years of her widowhood, the visibility of the Queen and the
monarchy continued, vicariously, through the representations of Prince Albert.
“His Work Will in Time Rank with Van Dyck…”
After the death of the Prince Consort in 1861, Winterhalter’s visits to England became
rarer. He claimed ill-health and working commitments, even suggesting that he should paint
the Queen on her visits to the Continent. 99 This she refused to do, though she continued
commissioning from Winterhalter portraits of her children and relatives, which the artist was
able to paint either in Germany or France (fig. 79). He returned to Britain twice, once in 1864
to paint the Prince and Princess of Wales (figs. 80 and 81), and for the second time in 1867
97
Ormond 1973, 8, no. 273. The gifting of the portrait was also reported in a number of British
newspapers, including The Times (8 April 1867).
98
“The National Portrait Gallery,” The Times, 11 December 1882, 6.
99
Dearest Mamma1861-1864 1981, 209.
91
(as mentioned above) to complete a version of his 1859 portrait of the Prince Consort for the
National Portrait Gallery. It is possible that on this last visit, Winterhalter also painted his last
portrait of the Queen, seated with her hand under her chin in Dürer’s archetypal image of
Melancholia, and wearing the robes in which she opened the Parliament for the first time
since the death of the Prince Consort (fig. 82). It is perhaps a significant coincidence, that the
last portrait commissioned by the Queen – a portrait of her half-sister, Fürstin zu HohenloheLangenburg (fig. 83) – was received by Queen Victoria in June of 1872, almost thirty years to
the day of Winterhalter’s first visit to London in 1842. His death in July 1873, followed shortly
after by that of Landseer, prompted an inspired entry in the Queen’s diary: “It is strange that
both he [Landseer] and Winterhalter, our personal attached friends of more than thirty years’
standing, should have gone within three of four months of each other! I cannot realise it”; 100
and to the Crown Princess of Prussia she wrote: “How terrible is dear old Winterhalter’s
death, quite irreparable. His work will in time rank with Van Dyck.” 101
Queen Victoria would continue posing for a string of unsuccessful portraits by British
and foreign artists until 1875, when, upon the recommendation of the Crown Princess of
Prussia, she agreed to sit to – or, in her own words, “determined… to sacrifice myself to be
painted” by – the Austrian court portraitist, Heinrich von Angeli (1840-1925). 102 In spite of
these initial misgivings, the Queen found the resulting portrait “absurdly like … as if I looked
at myself in a glass.” 103 Over the next twenty five years, von Angeli would go on creating
some of the most famous portraits of Queen Victoria’s late reign. The employment of von
Angeli after Winterhalter’s death further shows the importance Queen Victoria attached to the
professional representations of monarchy by international elite portraiture specialists.
Similarly to Winterhalter, von Angeli came to Britain on the personal recommendation to the
Queen and after having had painted Victoria’s relations on the Continent. In a further parallel
to Winterhalter, the artist was commissioned to paint the Queen’s portrait after his career as
an elite portrait specialist already had been established in Europe. By engaging von Angeli’s
100
Quoted in Nevill 1984, 89.
Quoted in Darling Child 1871-1878 1976, n.p.
102
Quoted in Millar 1992, 1:4.
103
Ibid.
101
92
professional services, like those of Winterhalter more than thirty years before, Queen Victoria
regained the qualitative control over the production of her own image and that of the
monarchy. While she continued her role as the principal patron of British culture and
patrimony by engaging predominantly British artists in the production of paintings of
commemorative and official events of her reign, her understanding and appreciation of the
domestic and international, political, diplomatic, and propagandist significance of royal
iconography as a semiotic concept continued to override the competing notion of ‘national’
schools of art.
93
Conclusion:
When Queen Victoria offered a portrait commission to Franz Xaver Winterhalter in
1842, she had followed in the footsteps of her royal predecessors, who invited elite portrait
specialists from abroad whenever the pool of native talent ran dry. The first chapter of the
thesis attested to the fact that Victoria likewise had found herself in the midst of such a
drought. It ensued unexpectedly in 1830 with the death of Sir Thomas Lawrence, who had
left no one equal to match his talents as a portrait painter. During his active presence on the
British art scene between the 1840s and 1860s, Winterhalter was able to fill Lawrence’s niche
with elegance and panache. In 1856, John Bull opined:
The favour bestowed by Royalty on Winterhalter has been as judicious as
flattering. He has been selected to paint portraits which have nearly all passed
subsequently under the hands of the engraver, and have become, so to
speak, national property. For such purpose, no other painter would have done
so well. He is not greater, even at mere portraiture, than many of our
countrymen, but he has a peculiar tact in leading up to the engraver’s
“effects”, and his employment by the Court is a good instance of the right
man being installed in the right place. 1
This opinion had remained prevalent in the British press throughout the Victorian and
Edwardian era. The Times critic, reassessing Queen Victoria’s iconography at the time of her
Diamond Jubilee in 1897, wrote that “in the days of Sir George Hayter and Winterhalter there
was nobody much better to go to…” 2 His words were echoed by a Burlington Magazine
reviewer, who, in response to a publication on the portrait painter John Lucas in 1910, wrote:
1
2
“Portraits of the Queen, Prince Albert, and the Princess Royal,” John Bull, 12 April 1856, 2.
“Queen Victoria,” The Times, 5 November 1897, 10.
94
“The survey of a career like that of John Lucas enables us to understand why in certain
circles Winterhalter should have been preferred.” 3
Winterhalter was perfectly suited to his role as Queen Victoria’s court portraitist.
References to Winterhalter in his patrons’ diaries and correspondence, some of which have
been quoted in Chapters 2 and 3, paint a picture of the artist who was hard-working,
productive, determined, stable, good-tempered, and well organised. He was respectful to his
sitters and considerate to their retinues, “excellent man full of zeal for his art, of good will,
obligingness and real modesty.” 4 He worked rapidly and with ease, delivering what was
promised, and on time. He expertly captured the faultless veneer of supple skin, rich textures
of fabrics, and the sparkle of heirloom jewels. His colours were bright, fresh, and always
harmonious. He imbued Victoria and Albert with the instinctive air of regal dignity and the
knowing look of hierarchical superiority. He was able to attain the perfect degree of balance
between the personal facial traits of his sitters and the prevalent physiognomic ideal of the
era. More importantly, he gave his exalted sitters the sense of corporeality and directness
which had been absent in British portraiture since the death of Lawrence.
Winterhalter’s deployment of such traditional iconographic devices as the full-length
contrapposto stance, direct gaze, voluminous robes, swirling drapes, and historical regalia
placed his paintings within the established templates of official royal portraiture by Van Dyck,
Reynolds, and Lawrence. The inclusion of landscape backgrounds echoed the notion of
‘sensibility’ in British painting of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and placed his
representations of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert within the context of the Romantic
movement. However, in contrast to portraits of the Queen and Prince by their earlier
iconographers, Winterhalter’s paintings actively engaged with contemporary issues of
constitutional monarchy (Westminster Palace), imperial expansion and colonial identity (the
State Diadem and Koh-i-noor Diamond), protection at home and abroad (the shako and
military uniforms), and the support and patronage of education, welfare, arts, and sciences
(books, maps, manuscripts, the Royal Family’s involvement in the 1851 Crystal Palace
3
4
L.C., “Reviews and Notices,” The Burlington Magazine, 96 (March 1911), 357.
Queen of the Belgians to Queen Victoria, 15/16 May 1842; quoted in Millar 1992, 1:284.
95
Exhibition). Furthermore, unlike Edwin Landseer, portrait commissions did not plunge
Winterhalter into the depths of creative despair, and he was capable of delivering satisfactory
likenesses of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert speedily, accurately, and every time. Last but
not least, though the artist had never married, unlike the ‘irregularities’ in George Hayter’s
private life, Winterhalter’s reputations was never touched by scandal, his sexuality never
questioned.
Queen Victoria’s patronage of Winterhalter represents one of the most successful and
perhaps most prolific collaborations between a patron and an artist in the middle of the
nineteenth century. Winterhalter created important official representations of Queen Victoria,
depicting her as the embodiment of wealth, stability, and largesse of the British Empire, and
the modern conceptualisation of empowered femininity. He was also able to successfully –
and respectfully – reverse the gendered traditions of royal iconography, and create a unique
semiotic construct for the Prince Consort’s representations. Winterhalter’s first-hand
knowledge of the reproductive processes of engraving and lithography have contributed to
the ease and confidence with which the royal agency replicated and disseminated his
portraits throughout Britain and its farthest imperial outposts. The production and distribution
of royal images came to play an important part in Queen Victoria’s performance of her royal
duties and in the continued visibility of the British Monarchy.
The four sets of portraits discussed in this thesis represent but a fraction of more
than one hundred and twenty works, which were commissioned by Queen Victoria and Prince
Albert from Winterhalter. 5 The Queen and Prince appear in more than forty works by the
artist, either by themselves or with each other, interacting with their children, other royal
families, courtiers, and politicians. These portraits, some of which were rarely seen outside
the palace walls in Britain or elsewhere, in the flesh or in reproduction, in Victoria’s lifetime or
that of her children (the last of whom, Princess Beatrice, passed away in 1942), 6 constitute
an interesting corpus in its own right for further study and research, which is beyond the
5
For the complete list of works commissioned from Winterhalter by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert,
as well as works associated with other members of the British Royal Family within and without the
British Royal Collection, see Millar 1992, Millar 1995, and Barilo von Reisberg 2007, all passim.
6
See the Provenance, Copies, Prints, and Exhibitions’ sections of the relevant portraits of and
associated with the British Royal Family in Barilo von Reisberg 2007, passim, and Appendix II.
96
scope of the present thesis. The existence of this significant body of work further proves and
illustrates the argument that by employing a foreign artist Queen Victoria was able to
exercise the qualitative control over the production and distribution of her imagery. The
decision to employ a portrait painter who was a foreigner and a German was not taken lightly
by the Queen. In all other genres of painting, Victoria remained a staunch supporter of British
artists. However, to paraphrase Christopher Lloyd, 7 the nature of the royal iconography is
propagandist, and Queen Victoria made the choice of Europe’s leading exponent in the field
to carry out the work.
7
Lloyd 1998, 9.
97
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