Victoria(n) artist

June 28, 1838 was the day Queen Victoria was crowned at Westminster Abbey. A number of people have described the event which, according to the historian, Roy Strong, was the last of the ‘botched coronations’ due to the lack of clarity about what should happen and the absence of much in the way of rehearsal. The five hour service was marred by mistakes and accidents – including the Archbishop placing the ring on the Queen’s wrong finger. Harriet Martineau, the social theory writer who had been invited to the coronation by the Queen herself, described the ‘highly barbaric’ ceremony as ‘pharaonic’ and: “offensive … to the God of the nineteenth century in the Western world”.

However, the Queen provided her own account in her journals which describe how overjoyed and overawed she felt witnessing the: “good humour and loyalty … of the millions of my loyal subjects, who were assembled in every spot to witness the Procession … [the] most beautiful and impressive moment of the Crown being placed on my head … the shouts which were very great, the drums, the trumpets, the firing of the guns, all at the same instant, rendered the spectacle most imposing …  [on] the Proudest [day] of my life”.

Queen Victoria liked to chronicle her daily life in many different ways, and had her own personal and important ‘take’ on things. As well as keeping journals, she was an early advocate of photography and she sketched, etched and painted – and insisted that those around her do the same.  

Last year, to mark the bicentenary of both their births, The British Museum exhibited 20 artworks made by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in the early years of their marriage. The display, titled ‘At Home: Royal Etchings by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’, provided a glimpse into the domestic life of the royals featuring their children and pets. Interestingly, the National Gallery of Victoria has a number of works by the Queen and the Prince which could have been included in the exhibition.

Back in 1980, Marina Warner, gave a lecture on the history of Queen Victoria’s art-making ‘Queen Victoria as an Artist’ which was subsequently published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, Vol. 128, no. 5287, June 1980. It is interesting to look at the Queen’s art practice and the artists who ‘guided’ her journey.

Victoria was originally taught drawing, before becoming queen, by Richard Westall RA. He was a member of the Royal Academy from 1794 and exhibited annually. During his youth, Westall had shared lodgings with the painter, Thomas Lawrence, and adopted many of Lawrence’s techniques. Lawrence was an adept portraitist of the aristocracy and there are 26 of his works in the NGV collection (including paintings and etchings).

Westall was less successful than his mentor. But his early days as an engraver of silver, and his interest in artists like William Blake, Henry Fuseli and John Flaxman, gave him a ‘facility with line’ that was extremely useful for the young princess in teaching her how to draw. He helped her focus on facial  features, expressions and gestures, and made drawings in the neoclassical style for Victoria to copy.

Victoria was Westall’s second student. He had previously taught his younger step-brother, William, to draw and paint. This led to William accompanying Matthew Flinders on his voyages around Australia, where William painted pictures of the flora and fauna.

Richard Westall was 62 years of age when he turned up in 1826 at Kensington Palace twice a week for Victoria’s drawing tuition. In this portrait (which was the last of Westall’s oil paintings) the young princess is aged 11 years and is sketching from nature. Seated on a bank by a stream in a wooded landscape , she appears innocently unaware that she is being observed. The princess is wearing the earliest known surviving dress – ‘The Blonde Dress – made of unbleached silk. Her bonnet is discarded at her feet and her terrier, Fanny, is at her side. Victoria was fond of Westall, describing him as a ‘very indulgent, patient, agreeable master’, and she was very sad when he died six months before her coronation.

Prince Albert was the next greatest influence on Victoria’s art. As a visionary of the world of emerging technology, economic complexity and collective responsibility, as well as a patron of the arts, he set up an etching press at Buckingham Palace with the help of master printers, Henry Graves and Richard Holdgate, while Victoria was expecting their first baby.

The painter, Edwin Landseer, and his brother, Tom, who was an engraver, assisted in the early days, and Sir George Hayter, the Queen’s ‘official painter of portraits and history’ was their tutor. The Queen and the Prince became avid etchers and, while the Queen’s first engraving was a copy of drawing by Stefano Della Bella in the Royal Collection, she was happiest when depicting scenes from family life. Victoria and Albert would often work jointly on images – revelling in the process of sharing and exploring.

Other artists who taught the Queen included Edward Lear (of the limerick fame) who helped her with ‘ink and wash’ works – particularly working with her on how to compose a picture, concentrate her eye on details and, most importantly, on how to leave things out.

But it was William Leighton Leitch who was the main artist – teaching both the Queen and her children for twenty years. Although born in Glasgow, Leitch was influenced by the sunnier landscapes he saw in Italy while spending time there in his thirties. He concentrated on helping Victoria handle paint, observe the colour changes wrought by weather and time of day, and brighten her colour palette.

However, neither Lear nor Leitch were portrait painters, and the chief influence on the Queen’s depiction of her children was Sir William Ross who was commissioned to make miniatures of them. The portrait of the young Queen at the beginning of the post is by Ross and is in the NGV collection.

Osborne House was the principal setting for the royal family’s domestic bliss and the place where Victoria and Albert sketched their delight in ‘our tribe’ as Albert called his children. The albums reveal a genuine affection and interest in the children and, as Warner points out are: ‘also a tribute to the edifying philosophy that the family is an image of society, and a moral and elevating family life the best means to a good life at large’.

Vicky, the Princess Royal, and the Queen’s first child (known as ‘darling Pussy’), was, unsurprisingly, the subject of many of her parent’s drawings and etchings. The Prince of Wales was also a favourite model – while he looked like his father. However, as his looks changed and his chin receded, the Queen described him as ‘unpicturesque’ and stopped drawing him. She clearly had favourites. Arthur, who looked like Prince Albert and was beautiful is often sketched; whereas Leopold was a ‘very common-looking child, very plain in the face’ and only appears once in the royal albums.

Victoria also enjoyed theatre, dress-ups and depicting family visitors including her niece, Adelhaid of Hohenlohe-Langenburg.

Whereas Albert was more interested in exploring ‘art history’.

Although Albert was rarely depicted by Victoria – she commissioned others to portray him as a mark of respect – he was the major instigator for her recording of family life. The album ‘Sketches of the Royal Children’ finished abruptly and sadly with his death in 1861.

In her later years, Victoria continued to draw and paint – although she was less interested in portraiture (the art she shared with Albert) and more interested in landscape. Idleness was loathsome to her and she carried small bound sketchpads whenever she went out driving with John Brown. As Warner notes: ‘[Victoria] made no claims for her work’s importance… [but] She had a real feel for beauty, in all of creation, and more uncommonly, a real ability to praise and to praise generously the places where she found it’. The way she appreciated it best, was in her willingness to try and capture it.

It is fascinating to take a look at another aspect of a true ‘Victorian’.