Ryall, Henry Thomas: Queen Victoria enthroned

The Duchess of Kent, Queen Victoria’s mother, failed to achieve her most ambitious goal of becoming Queen of Great Britain until her daughter’s majority. King William IV died exactly in 1837, when his niece and heir to the throne turned eighteen. Freed from the fetters and the strict education of her mother, the young queen enjoyed her new power. Mother and daughter were going to become even more estranged. They were reconciled only shortly before the death of the Duchess of Kent in 1861. George Hayter’s painting on which this etching is based was the official state portrait of the queen commissioned by Victoria in 1838. It shows her in full coronation robes with a mystically transfigured gaze enthroned in front of a pillar in Westminster Abbey. Later, the court painter modified the sacred effect of the portrait, changed the background and depicted Victoria as sitting in front of a canopy. The portrait is preserved at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, in the Scottish residence of the British royal family. Another version is at Buckingham Palace. Replicas and reproductions of the state portrait were disseminated worldwide to announce the arrival of a new era.

To the digitised copy