Victoria’s secret? Etchings up for sale show queen was a fine artist
A COLLECTION of Queen Victoria’s personal etchings, which the monarch sought a court order to prevent from being exhibited publicly, are to go on sale for the first time.
The album of 80 etchings, made by Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert, is expected to fetch as much as £50,000 when it goes under the hammer next month, at an auction house in Cirencester, Gloucestershire.
The royal couple began etching in 1840, under the tutelage of Sir George Hayter, the royal portrait painter, and covered a variety of subjects, from medieval battles, to what have been described as “poignant” domestic scenes of their own family.
However, in the late 1840s, the works became the subject of a bitter court battle, after Jasper Judge, a royal reporter, managed to bribe a printer £5 to provide him with copies of 63 of the etchings.
Judge hoped to sell the works at an exhibition, but the Palace successfully applied for an injunction to prevent the etchings being displayed.
The bound volume of 80 of the works, which will be offered for sale by auctioneers Dominic Winter on May 11, with a guide price of £30,000 to £50,000, was given by Victoria to Sir Theodore Martin, who was commissioned to write a biography of Albert.
It is one of only three known sets, and has remained in the Martin family to this day.
Chris Albury, auctioneer at Dominic Winter, said: “One can see the Queen grappling with her etchings. It shows the full progress from a novice into quite a fine artist.
“Over the course of a number of years, Victoria and Albert had become interested in etching. The album is a collection of 80 of the 87 which they created.
“It is good to know the skills our monarchs have other than ruling over us and Queen Victoria was a very talented artist. The album crosses into the art world. It isn’t just royal memorabilia and we expect a lot of interest.”
Victoria and Albert’s initial injunction had to be renewed on several occasions, with the courts accepting the argument that publishing the etchings would be a breach of the royal couple’s privacy.
The other sets of the etchings are in the royal collection, at Windsor, and the British Museum.
Mr Albury added: “It was given to Sir Theodore Martin, who was a close friend of the Queen. She gave him the job of writing a biography of Prince Albert following his death. Martin’s wife Helena Faucit was an actress who the Queen had seen perform.
“They were very close and when the Queen toured Wales she actually visited them. The etchings are all bound into an album.”