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Queen VICTORIA (1819-1901) and Prince ALBERT (1819-1861)
An album containing a collection of etchings
[dated 1840-1844]. Small folio (12 x 9 inches). 22 etchings (sheet size 11 x 8 inches and smaller, three on india paper mounted) tipped onto 22 leaves. Later red morocco gilt, the covers with gilt outer border of a wide fillet, surrounding inset wooden panels carved in semi-relief with a border of stylized flower sprays within arched spaces, around a central panel of semi-naturalistic foliage, the flat spine gilt in six compartments, gilt metal locking clasp, gilt edges, by Asprey, 166 Bond Street (impressed name and address on lock). Modern cloth box.
A fine and rare collection of 5 etchings by Queen Victoria and 17 by Prince Albert. A collection which gives insight into the domestic life of the monarch, a collection that was never meant to be seen outside the inner circle of the Royal court.
Queen Victoria and her Consort Prince Albert took up etching together in 1840; Sir George Hayter, R.A. was in attendance, painting their portraits, and agreed to give them instruction. It is reported that the Queen sought it as an amusement while in retirement during her pregnancies. The Royal couple etched together, deriving their compositions mostly from paintings and drawings in their collection, including pictures by Edwin Landseer; but they also produced the occasional original composition or worked from each other's sketches. Their enthusiasm lasted five years, until 1849. In all, Victoria etched about 62 plates, Albert 25.
The plates were etched at Windsor Castle, where there was also a small press on which proof impressions were pulled. From time to time, the plates were discreetly entrusted to a local printer called Brown, on strict instructions that all impressions made should be returned, with the plates, to the Castle.
Nonetheless, unauthorized proofs were taken. In 1847, a local reporter named Jasper Tomsett Judge, who had made a career as a "royal-watcher", filing news and gossip about the court, and publishing cheap pamphlets describing the stables and kitchens at Windsor and other such matters for tourists, got wind of the existence of a cache of impressions. These were in the possession of a fellow called Middleton, who had been a printer at Brown's, and had been given the plates to print from, but, obviously, had disobeyed the Royal instructions they came with. Middleton struck a deal with Judge, who paid £5 for 60 prints.
Judge then collaborated with a London bookseller and printer named William Strange on the publication of a critical catalogue of these etchings, to be sold to visitors to the exhibition they planned for Strange's shop in Paternoster Row. Aware of the delicacy of this plan, Judge apparently attempted to seek, by correspondence, the artists' permission to go ahead with the plan - but not, apparently, until after Judge had filed a press release publicizing both pamphlet and exhibition, which was picked up and printed in dozens of regional papers always hungry for any copy concerning the Court.
The precise measure of Judge's propriety is open for debate; in any event, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were not amused and promptly filed an avalanche of suits and injunctions against Judge, Strange, Middleton and even Judge's son, who had been living in France during the whole affair. Opinion in the press appears to have taken sides against their fellow journalist, hurling scorn on Judge, his co-defendants, and their plan. In 1849, William Strange printed a lengthy pamphlet written and published by Judge, "The Royal Etchings". A Statement of Facts Relating To The Origin, Object, and Progress of the Proceedings in Chancery, Instituted by Her Majesty & the Prince Consort. In it, Judge attempts to demonstrate that he was acting out of patriotic love for his Queen, to bring to the attention of the public further proof of their Royal talents, in order to extend the range of reasons for their subjects to admire and adore them. He quotes at length from his previous pamphlets, recounts numerous instances when he showed and described these etchings to acquaintances, to prove he was unaware he might be engaged in any wrongdoing, and documents the painstaking efforts he made to procure permission for his project from the Royal Household, averring that he refused to sell any of his pamphlets before he had that permission in writing - which he never got, obtaining law suits instead.
The following etchings, by Queen Victoria and her Consort Prince Albert, are on india paper mounted on stiff paper which may be the "card" referred to by Judge in his description of the paper on which the etchings he purchased from Middleton were printed. Very few etchings by either Royal artist "escaped" the private collections at Windsor, where a complete set is preserved in an album; another set was donated by George V to the British Museum.
Titles and numbers (with all Victoria's prints numbered first, then Albert's, and arranged chronologically) are from A.H. Scott-Elliot, "The Etchings by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert," Bulletin of the New York Public Library, 65, March 1961, 139-153.
By Queen Victoria: 12 A Dachshund, full length, to right (Waldman), 1840; 49 Five studies of the Princess Royal, 1842-43; Pussy, before going to bed; Victoria on Jan 1, 1844, in the costume of the late Princess Royal; Victoria and Albert as Gotha peasants, 1845.
By Albert of Saxe-Coburg, Prince Consort; 63 A Bearded Oriental wearing a turban in profile to right, 1840; 64 Wallenstein and his servant (from Schiller), 1840; 67 Romeo and Tybalt, 1840; 68 Fiesko and Andrea Dorea, 1840 (second state); 70 The head of a Dachshund, 1840; 71 A Figure in armour and cloak, bearing an axe, 1840; 73 Head of a young man with curling hair, in profile to right, 1840; 74 Six men, in 16th century costume, seated around a table, 1841; 77 Götz of Berlichingen and the pilgrim, 1841; 78 Mignon, 1841; 79 The head of a man, full face, with straggling hair, 1841; 81 Two heads of eagles, 1841; 82 Two peasant women, one on crutches, 1842; 84 The Princess Royal and the Prince of Wales, 1843; 86 Crows and a fox attacking a dead stag, 1843 ; 87 A Greyhound and a skye terrier, lying down, 1844; a mining or dockside scene, 1851.
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#2823 $48,000.00 
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© 2002-2005 Donald A. Heald
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