Lot Essay
This is an unusually rare group of drawings of Princess Victoria, later Queen. The earliest known drawing being by the Hanoverian artist Paul Johann Georg Fischer (1786-1875), dated August 1819, held in the collection of Her Majesty the Queen. [The Victorian Watercolours and Drawings in The Collection of Her Majesty the Queen. Delia Miller, London: Philip Wilson Publishers Limited, 1995. Vol.I., p. 318. No. 1859].
Lady Elizabeth Heathcote née Lindsay was the grand-daughter of the 23rd Earl of Crawford and a kinswoman of the celebrated artist Louisa, Marchioness of Waterford. The Lady's Realm (1897) explains: "The two children, Princess Victoria and little Elizabeth Anne Heathcote, were inseperable playfellows, and consequently Lady Elizabeth possessed unrivalled opportunities of sketching them at all times ... in the house, on the sea-shore, or in the grounds of East Cliff Lodge, placed at their disposal by Sir Moses Montefiore. The children are distinguished from each other in the original drawings ... by her Majesty being invariably depicted wearing little blue shoes." The article concludes: "In June 1895 the set of twenty-two sketches above alluded to was sent to Windsor for inspection by Her Majesty the Queen, who was pleased to express great interest in them, and in February of the present year, graciously sanctioned their appearance in an illustrated magazine, and they are now published for the first time."
After Lady Elizabeth's death in 1825, the collection of drawings of her daughter (90 in all including the 22 of the holiday in Ramsgate) passed into the hands of the french governess, who documented and numbered them. Sadly these papers were destroyed before the article appeared in The Lady's Realm. This set of 29 drawings appear to be the survivors of the collection.
Lady Elizabeth Heathcote née Lindsay was the grand-daughter of the 23rd Earl of Crawford and a kinswoman of the celebrated artist Louisa, Marchioness of Waterford. The Lady's Realm (1897) explains: "The two children, Princess Victoria and little Elizabeth Anne Heathcote, were inseperable playfellows, and consequently Lady Elizabeth possessed unrivalled opportunities of sketching them at all times ... in the house, on the sea-shore, or in the grounds of East Cliff Lodge, placed at their disposal by Sir Moses Montefiore. The children are distinguished from each other in the original drawings ... by her Majesty being invariably depicted wearing little blue shoes." The article concludes: "In June 1895 the set of twenty-two sketches above alluded to was sent to Windsor for inspection by Her Majesty the Queen, who was pleased to express great interest in them, and in February of the present year, graciously sanctioned their appearance in an illustrated magazine, and they are now published for the first time."
After Lady Elizabeth's death in 1825, the collection of drawings of her daughter (90 in all including the 22 of the holiday in Ramsgate) passed into the hands of the french governess, who documented and numbered them. Sadly these papers were destroyed before the article appeared in The Lady's Realm. This set of 29 drawings appear to be the survivors of the collection.