Photograph of a drawing room within Government House, Victoria. An armchair and sofas are positioned around a circular table with books and photographs. On the left, above the fireplace hangs a large mirror. Three chandeliers hang from the ceiling and double doors on the right are flanked by portraits of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. On the 22nd December 1881, Prince Albert Victor and Prince George of Wales visited Government House, before walking around the Botanical Gardens.

This is a photograph from one of the nine albums compiled following Prince Albert Victor (1864-92) and Prince George of Wales' (1865-1936) world tour aboard HMS Bacchante from 1879 to 1882. The photographs were collected by their chaperon and tutor, John Neale Dalton.

The majority of the images in these albums are topographical views and architectural studies, loosely arranged according to the group’s itinerary. They include photographs of artefacts, local people and public figures, as well as portraits of the princes taken during the tour. The attempt to recreate the experience of a journey through such an assortment of images is common to many amateur travelling albums of this period. In 1886, some of the photographs in the albums were reproduced as engravings in the published accounts of the voyage, 'The Cruise of Her Majesty's Ship Bacchante, 1879-1882'.