Click to see large size, bigger than the original which is 4"x3".It must have been taken by a professional photographer, for I don’t suppose amateurs would have been able to do much indoor photography in 1867. I am not sure how it would have been illuminated: perhaps by igniting a heap of magnesium powder whilst the shutter was held open, for there was no way then to synchronize flash with the camera’s mechanism. This must explain why the children’s eyes are so mysteriously blurred, not to mention the stiff poses. Without the magnesium, they would have had to hold their poses for many seconds during a long exposure.
One cannot imagine Queen Victoria’s family going to a studio to pose for portraits. A photographer would have been summoned to the Royal residence, perhaps Osborne House, which I’ve referred to in earlier posts from the Isle of Wight, last summer. In this photo, the drapes seem to have been hastily put in place and the carpet is not even flat. The wall at far right seems to have been roughly blanked out---Photoshopped, as we’d say today but I assure you I merely scanned the original photo which is uniformly faded, and covered with minor surface marks. I’ve not edited anything.
The authenticity of the print, on stout semi-glossy card, once glued by the corners into an album, is attested by the pencilled inscription on the back: “Aunt V from Arthur Xtmas 1867”. Arthur was Queen Victoria’s seventh child, 17 at the time of writing. Another inscription below the first, in a different, hardly legible hand, says “King Edward VII When Prince of Wales Queen Alexandra—Princess of Wales 3 eldest children.” A third ball-point inscription, possibly in my aunt’s handwriting, says “Edward VII & Queen Alexandra”.
My sister showed me the photo, almost as an afterthought, after we had been going through photos in my grandmother’s albums. This was from a different set, though. When she was a little girl, our grandmother had asked her whether there was anything she would like from the room they were sitting in, so she asked for a pretty little table-top cabinet in white lacquer. It contained various photos including this one. Grandmother’s ancestor (grandfather?) Sir Howard Elphinstone had been tutor to Prince Arthur. I don’t know who Aunt V was: not Lady Elphinstone, for she was Constance Mary Alexander. (See corrections below, in first comment).
As Royal photographs of the period go, this one is exceptionally informal, and would have been sent only to close friends and relatives of the family. The Prince’s hair is tied up strangely and the Princess seems to have just washed hers. The Prince stretches out his feet casually showing his boot-soles, whilst holding the second eldest child tightly to stop him wriggling. Yes, him: the elder children despite wearing what we’d now call dresses, were boys. Prince Albert Victor, the eldest, died in 1892, leaving the one on the Prince of Wales’s knee to succeed to the the throne—as King George V. He’s two years old in the picture but Wikipedia shows one of him aged five looking very masculine in a sailor suit.
5 comments:
My sister writes to correct the above as follows:
"Sir Howard ( Prince Arthur's governor ) ( tutor in senior education ) was granny's mothers second cousin i.e. our g.grandmother's sec. cousin. One of Sir Howard's sisters was called Ellen Victoria maybe this was who Prince Arthur addressed as Aunt V.
The Sir Howard above was great nephew to and named after our forbear, the first Sir Howard who got his baronetcy on recommendation from Duke of Wellington for his exploits and bravery in the Peninsular War."
Hmm, I had a bit of trouble following this! What's needed is a family tree. Actually, two family trees! Victoria's progeny, and your family tree, Vincent!
Kathleen
Ah, Kathleen, I'm not good at visualizing relationships either! But Wikipedia gives instant information on Queen Victoria's issue, which is of course the correct old fashioned term for offspring in these matters.
As for my own family tree, I have never taken any interest in it, I'm sorry to say. My sister has, and that is why she was able to correct me. I only know it in broad-brush terms: on the mother's side an Archbishop of Canterbury (John Bird Sumner) as well as the dashing Sir Howard Elphinstones, both of them, various other soldiers and clergymen and a rich cotton merchant probably with dirty hands from slave trade. On the father's side---secret bastardy, so i don't know much.
very interesting vincent... so you have a royal connection!
Royal connection! - well, not personally. At least it never felt that way.
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