£16,250 record for Victoria’s linen knickers

A PAIR of Queen Victoria’s knickers have sold for £16,250 – more than five times the auction estimate and what is believed to be a world record.

The sizeable linen pants, pictured above, are believed to date from the late 1800s and bear her emblem VR, short for Victoria Regina, embroidered beneath a crown.

Items of Victoria’s clothing were often given to members of the royal household, particularly after her death in 1901.

Nic McElhatton, of Christie’s in London, said: ‘I have never had a price like that before. We think it’s probably a new world record, which is just amazing.

‘There has always been huge demand for royal items, but particularly the British Royal Family. Queen Victoria was quite into hygiene so she would have had a pair of drawers like this every day then never used them again.

‘When she came to the throne in 1837 she was very slender but these have quite a wide girth so we suspect these come from later in her reign.’

He said that, by tradition, items such as underwear were passed on rather than thrown out. Mr McElhatton added: ‘King Edward VII gifted them to someone but we’re not sure who, and they then went to a dealer, which is where the seller bought them from in 1987.’

The previous record was a pair of Victoria’s cotton drawers that fetched £12,090 at auction in Chippenham, Wiltshire, last year.