Christian Karl August Noack (1822-1905) executed more than one thousand portraits throughout his career, with sitters ranging from a loyal page boy to royal patrons (RCIN 403652, 405047). Having studied at the Dusseldorf and Antwerp Academies, Noack travelled throughout France, Italy and the Netherlands producing a plethora of portraits in addition to landscapes, biblical and historical subjects. Noack eventually returned to Darmstadt where he became court painter to the Duchy of Hesse and professor at the Polytechnic Institute.

Princess Victoria (1863-1950) was the first child of Queen Victoria's second daughter, Princess Alice, and her husband, Prince Louis of Hesse. She married her father's first cousin, Prince Louis of Battenberg, an officer in the Royal Navy. She was the maternal grandmother of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. The Princess appears here half-length, wearing a low-cut, white broderie anglaise dress, with a blue sash, ribbons and bows on the shoulders and a ribbon in her hair. A honeysuckle grows across the foreground.