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Home , Alfred Edward Chalon, Dash (spaniel), Franz Xaver Winterhalter, George Hayter, John Partridge (actor), Joseph Karl Stieler

Eugene Barilo von Reisberg

Tradition and Innovation:

Official Representations of Queen and Prince Albert by

Master of Arts Thesis University of Melbourne, 2009

i

Tradition and Innovation:

Official Representations of

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert

by Franz Xaver Winterhalter

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 Tradition and Innovation:

Official Representations of and Prince Albert

by Franz Xaver Winterhalter

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 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 . 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, ;

– 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 : Mme 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 Style has been adhered to throughout the thesis (cf. The Chicago

Manual of Style, 15th Edition (Chicago and : 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 (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 (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 (1769-1850), William IV (1765-1837), 1833, oil on canvas, 270.5 x 178.1 cm, HM Queen Elizabeth II, Windsor Castle (from www.royalcollection.org.uk, accessed 15 October 2009).

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 (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 (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, (from Millar 1969, 2: no. 679).

Fig. 8. Sir (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, (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 www.royalcollection.org.uk, accessed 15 October 2009).

Fig. 14. Sir George HAYTER (1792-1871), Queen Victoria (1819-1901), 1838, oil on canvas, London, Guildhall Art Gallery.

Fig. 15. Sir (1803-1873), Queen Victoria on Horseback, 1838, oil on canvas, 52.1 x 43.2 (unfinished), HM Queen Elizabeth II, Windsor Castle (from www.royalcollection.org.uk, accessed 15 October 2009).

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 www.royalcollection.org.uk, accessed 15 October 2009).

Fig. 17. Sir (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 www.royalcollection.org.uk, accessed 15 October 2009).

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 (1819-1901), 1837, watercolour on paper, HM Albert II, King of the Belgians.

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 www.royalcollection.org.uk, accessed 15 October 2009).

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 www.royalcollection.org.uk, accessed 15 October 2009).

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 (1819- 1861), 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 www.royalcollection.org.uk, accessed 15 October 2009).

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 www.royalcollection.org.uk, accessed 15 October 2009).

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, , Staatliche Kunsthalle (from Winterhalter 1987-88, 81).

Fig. 30. Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), after (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 (1817- 1907), 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 (1822- 1897), 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 (1833- 1909), 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, accessed 15 October 2009).

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, (from www.royalcollection.org.uk, accessed 15 October 2009).

Fig. 37. Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), Victoire, Duchesse de Nemours (1822- 1857), 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, accessed 15 October 2009).

Fig. 38. Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), Victoire, Duchesse de Nemours (1822- 1857), 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 (1790- 1865), 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. Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), Queen Victoria (1819-1901), 1842, oil on canvas, 133.4 x 97.8 cm, HM Queen Elizabeth II, Windsor Castle (from www.royalcollection.org.uk, accessed 15 October 2009).

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 www.royalcollection.org.uk, accessed 15 October 2009).

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 (1822- 1897), 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. Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), Queen Victoria (1819-1901), 1842, oil on canvas, 133 x 97 cm, Musée National du Château de Versailles (from Duchess of York 1991, 81).

Fig. 46. 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).

Fig. 47. Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), Prince Albert (1819-1861), 1843, oil on canvas, 274.3 x 162.6 cm, HM Queen Elizabeth II, Windsor Castle (The Royal Collection © HM Queen Elizabeth II).

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, accessed 15 October 2009).

Fig. 50. Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), Leopold I, King of the Belgians (1790- 1865), 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 (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 www.royalcollection.org.uk, accessed 15 October 2009).

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) (1762- 1830), 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 www.royalcollection.org.uk, accessed 15 October 2009).

Fig. 57. Sir (1599-1641), King Charles I (1600-1649), 1636, oil on canvas, 248.3 x 153.6 cm, HM Queen Elizabeth II (from www.royalcollection.org.uk, accessed 15 October 2009).

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, 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 (1826- 1920), 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 (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).

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. Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), Queen Victoria (1819-1901), 1859, oil on canvas, 241.9 x 157.5 cm, HM Queen Elizabeth II, Buckingham Palace (The Royal Collection © HM Queen Elizabeth II).

Fig. 66. Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), Prince Albert (1819-1861), 1859, oil on canvas, 241.9 x 158.1 cm, HM Queen Elizabeth II, Buckingham Palace (The Royal Collection © HM Queen Elizabeth II).

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. Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), Princess Tatiana Alexandrovna Youssoupova (1828-1879), née Countess Ribeaupierre, 1858, oil on canvas, 147 x 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 Elizabeth II, Buckingham Palace (from www.royalcollection.org.uk, accessed 15 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 (1811- 1890), 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 (1819- 1901) 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 (1841- 1910), later King Edward VII, 1864, oil on canvas, 162.2 x 111.4 cm, HM Queen Elizabeth II, Buckingham Palace (from www.royalcollection.org.uk, accessed 15 October 2009).

Fig. 81. Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), Alexandra, Princess of Wales (1844- 1925), née Princess of Denmark, later Queen Alexandra, 1864, oil on canvas, 162.2 x 1114 cm, HM Queen Elizabeth II, Buckingham Palace (from www.royalcollection.org.uk, accessed 15 October 2009).

Fig. 82. Franz Xaver WINTERHALTER (1805-1873), Queen Victoria (1819-1901), 1868, oil 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 Hohenlohe- Langenburg (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 (1805-

1873), who came highly recommended by her relatives at the courts of France and .

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 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 of Belgium, Brazil,

Germany, , the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Württemberg, and the sovereign rulers of numerous German duchies and principalities, including , Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Sachsen-

Coburg 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 Beaufort-

Spontins 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, 155- 158.

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.19thc- artworldwide.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 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 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 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 ’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 , 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 (1769-

1850) 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 re- appraisal, 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. 13 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: of Scotland, 2003).

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 Casteras, Margaret Homans, and

Adrienne .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. 21 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 (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).

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

(1723-1792), (1727-1788), (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 (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 , 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 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 Delivered to the students of the Royal Academy on the Distribution of Prizes, 10 December 1776; quoted ibid., 237. 4 Delivered to the students of the Royal Academy on the Distribution of Prizes, 10 December 1778; 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. 10 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.

13 , 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. 15 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.

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 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. 20 “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.

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. 27 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 inter- changeability 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.

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. 32 “Royal Academy Exhibition,” The Examiner, 11 May 1828, 308. 33 “Royal Academy Exhibition,” The Times, 12 July 1830, 5. 34 “Royal Academy,” The Morning Chronicle, 7 May 1832, n.p. 35 Roberts 1907, 172-178.

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. 37 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.

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 (1770-1854), John Linnell (1792-1882), Henry William

Pickersgill (1782-1875), (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 “Royal Academy,” The Morning Chronicle, 2 May 1831, n.p. 42 “Royal Academy,” The Morning Chronicle, 16 May 1831, n.p. 43 The Morning Chronicle, 2 May 1831. 44 R.H., “Royal Academy Exhibition,” The Examiner, 22 June 1828, 404. 45 “Royal Academy,” The Morning Chronicle, 17 May 1830, n.p. 46 “Royal Academy,” The Morning Chronicle, 2 May 1837, n.p.

19 number of also attracted critical praise – such as

(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 (1803-

1832) 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. 48 “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.

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 The Morning Chronicle, 16 May 1831. 52 Bulwer-Lytton 1840, 517-58. 53 The Morning Chronicle, 7 May 1832. 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.

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 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. 57 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.

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. 63 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.

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 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 , 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 , 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. 73 The Morning Chronicle, 7 May 1832. 74 “Royal Academy,” The Morning Chronicle, 12 May 1834, n.p. 75 “Royal Academy,” The Morning Chronicle, 9 May 1835, n.p. 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.

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 semi- public 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 (1780-

1860), 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 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 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 The Morning Chronicle, 12 May 1834. 86 “Royal Academy,” The Morning Chronicle, 6 May 1835, n.p. 87 “The Royal Academy,” The Times, 11 May 1827, 5. 88 The Morning Chronicle, 12 May 1834. 89 The Morning Chronicle, 6 May 1835. 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 , 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 “Royal Academy,” The Morning Chronicle, 2 May 1837, n.p. 92 Steegman 1968, 184. 93 “Royal Academy,” The Morning Chronicle, 28 May 1832, n.p. 94 Cf. Lenman 1997, 71, on the parallel developments in Germany’s portrait market.

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 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. 2 Weintraub 1987, 61. 3 Ibid., 66. 4 Greville 1885, 1:2.

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 (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-in- law, Princess Charlotte of Wales (1796-1817), and visited his studio with Victoria, where the

5 Cf. Millar 1992, 1:xiii-xiv. 6 Ibid. 7 Cf. Millar 1969, 1:9-10. 8 See Appendix I, n. 8.

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. 10 “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.

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. 15 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.

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. 19 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.

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 full- length 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. 23 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.

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. 28 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.

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 1842-

1843 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. 39 Lennie 1976, 57-58. 40 “Royal Academy,” The Morning Chronicle, 5 May 1838, n.p. 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 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 (1800-

1872), 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 Sachsen-

Coburg 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. 47 “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 “Portraits of Prince Albert,” Bell’s Life, 26 January 1840, 17. 53 Millar 1992, 1:200-201. 54 “The Royal Academy Exhibition,” The Art Union, May 1840, 76.

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. 56 “The Queen’s Gazette,” The Court Magazine, December 1840, 485. 57 “Royal Academy,” The Morning Chronicle, 9 May 1842, n.p. 58 “The Royal Academy Exhibition,” The Art Union, May 1841, 76. 59 “Royal Academy,” The Morning Chronicle, 9 May 1842, n.p. 60 Cf. “The Court Circular,” The Times, 25 July 1842, 7.

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 (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. 66 “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.

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 Colley 1992, 199. 70 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 officially- sanctioned 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. 72 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.

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. 79 See Bernardy 1977, 167-69. 80 Panter 1996, 40-43. 81 Ibid., 53-62.

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 (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 three- quarter-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. 99 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.

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 Louis-

104 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 Garter120 and the

Golden Fleece121 are proudly displayed on his chest and around his neck. However, while the

116 Barilo von Reisberg 2007, 40. 117 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 , 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

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 1840s122 – 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 re- affirmed 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. 128 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.

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. 137 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.

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. 141 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.

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. 145 Ibid., 202. 146 Stanley 1916, 98.

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 sister- in-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 (1536-

1554) 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. 7 See, for example, Wheatcroft 1995, 215-221; and Polnay 1962, 97-124. 8 Piper 1984, passim. 9 Weintraub 1987, 101-102.

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. 11 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.

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 non- hereditary 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. 20 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).

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. 23 Beltz 1841, cxxxv. 24 Ibid., cxxxviii. 25 Ibid., cxliv. 26 Ibid., cxlvii, and Weintraub 1997, 4.

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. 28 Millar 1992, 1:200-201. 29 “Portraits of Prince Albert,” Bell’s Life, 26 January 1840, 3.

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. 35 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).

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-in- waiting 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. 43 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.

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 Sachsen-

49 Ibid., 1:35. 50 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).

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 Field-

Marshal 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. 56 “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

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 nineteenth- century 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 , 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-in- waiting, 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 full- length 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. 68 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.

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. 72 On Empress Eugénie, see Turnbull 1974, passim. 73 On Princess Tatiana Yousoupova, see Youssoupov 1952 and Youssoupov 1991, passim. 74 Millar 1992, 1:298.

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 , 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. 78 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, 89- 90, 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.

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 , 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 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 semi- raised 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 equally- aware 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 , 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-and- shoulder 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 Hohenlohe-

Langenburg (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. 101 Quoted in Darling Child 1871-1878 1976, n.p. 102 Quoted in Millar 1992, 1:4. 103 Ibid.

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 “Portraits of the Queen, Prince Albert, and the Princess Royal,” John Bull, 12 April 1856, 2. 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 L.C., “Reviews and Notices,” The Burlington Magazine, 96 (March 1911), 357. 4 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 BIBLIOGRAPHY

PRIMARY SOURCES:

Unpublished Correspondence and Archival Materials.

PERIODICALS, ARTICLES AND REVIEWS:

The following nineteenth-century periodicals have been consulted in preparation for this thesis:

Age Age and Argus Art Journal Art-Union Atheneum Bell’s Life Caledonian Mercury (Edinburgh) Court Magazine & Monthly Critic Daily News Era Examiner Figaro in London Freeman’s Journal (Dublin) Glasgow Herald John Bull L’Artiste (Paris) La Belle Assemblée Lady’s Newspaper London Literary Gazette Morning Chronicle Punch Satirist St James’s Medley Times World of Fashion

SECONDARY SOURCES:

Addington 1969 Addington, Arthur Charles. The Royal House of Stuart. London: Skilton, 1969.

Adress-Handbuch 1854 Adress-Handbuch des Herzogtums Sachsen Coburg und Gotha. Coburg: J.D.Meusel und Sohn, 1854.

Alexander 1980 Alexander, Michael, and Sushila Anard. Queen Victoria’s Maharajah. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1980.

Almanach de Gotha Almanach de Gotha. Gotha: Justus Perthes, 1763-1944; London: Justus Perthes, 1998-2004.

98 Ames 1968 Ames, Winslow. Prince Albert and Victorian Taste. London: Chapman and Hall, 1968.

Arnaud 1908 Arnaud, Raoul. Louis-Philippe and His Sister. The Political Life and Role of Adélaïde d’Orléans. London: David Nutt, 1908.

Auchincloss 1979 Auchincloss, Louis. Persons of Consequence. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1979.

Axel 2001 Axel, Brian Keith. The Nation’s Tortured Body: Violence, Representation, and the Formation of a Sikh ‘Diaspora’, Durham: Duke University Press, 2001.

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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

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