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Lot Essay
Princess Victoria, Princess Royal, was the eldest daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. She was styled Princess Royal of the United Kingdom in 1841 and became Crown Princess of Prussia when she married the future Emperor Frederick III in 1858. The couple first met in London when Prince Frederick William of Prussia was invited to the opening of the Great Exhibition in 1851. Following the death of his father, Prince Frederick acceded to the throne in 1888. He was terminally ill with throat cancer, however, and died after only ninety-nine days on the throne. Following the death of her husband, Victoria became known simply as The Empress Frederick. She was an avid patron of the arts and an accomplished artist in her own right, eventually helping to organise the 1872 Industrial Art Exhibition. The widowed Victoria lived at the Castle Friedrichshof, but maintained ties to her family in the United Kingdom throughout her life. While visiting her mother at Balmoral in 1899, Victoria was diagnosed with inoperable breast cancer which eventually spread to her spine. Fewer than seven months after the dead of her mother in 1901, Victoria died at Castle Friedrichshof.