Edwin Landseer was one of the few artists who worked for Queen Victoria before her marriage and who continued to enjoy royal patronage long thereafter. During the early 1840s he gave both Queen Victoria and Prince Albert etching lessons, and the couple sometimes called in to his studio in St. John’s Wood (Journal, 3 April 1849).

Princess Victoria (‘Pussy’) is portrayed at the age of eight months, wearing a white dress with pink satin ribbon and a pendant around her neck – perhaps the ‘miniature beautifully set in a small wreath of diamonds, with a row of pearls attached to it’, a christening present from her grandmother the Duchess of Kent (Journal, 10 February, 1841). Eos was Prince Albert’s favourite pet and it will have been no coincidence that she has been included with his beloved daughter in a picture intended for his birthday. The greyhound was apparently very docile with children, Queen Victoria remarking on one occasion that ‘it was quite pretty to see her [Pussy] playing with “Eos”, who is so gentle & the child so delighted with her, patting her with both her hands’ (Journal, 21 June, 1841).

Sittings for this picture took place during June and July 1841; the Queen wrote in a letter to the Queen of the Belgians that the child’s behaviour and appearance had been exemplary. Prince Albert is recorded as having been ‘quite delighted’ with the picture (Journal, 26 August 1841). It was hung in his Writing Room at Buckingham Palace.

The ‘bergère’ in which the Princess lies is one of a set of six still at Buckingham Palace (RCIN 2411), made by Morel and Hughes in 1812 for George IV and intended for Carlton House. The Barbary dove perched on the arm of the chair, which Landseer may have included as a symbol of childish innocence, was probably another pet, imported from Africa.

Text adapted from Victoria and Albert: Art & Love, London, 2010