This is a copy by William Corden of the portrait of Princess Alexandra by Franz Xaver Winterhalter (RCIN 402351). Princess Alexandra of Denmark, or Alix, as she was known in the family, is wearing a white ball dress with the badge of the Order of Victoria and Albert. Her brooch and ear-rings were given to her on her marriage in 1863 by Prince Albert Edward. The Prince's elder sister, Victoria, the Crown Princess of Prussia, described her as having ‘a lovely figure but very thin, a complexion as beautiful as possible. Very fine white regular teeth and very fine large eyes – with extremely prettily marked eyebrows. A very fine well-shaped nose, very narrow but a little long – her whole face is very narrow, her forehead too but well shaped and not at all flat. Her voice, her walk, carriage and manner are perfect, she is one of the most ladylike and aristocratic looking people I ever saw’ and ‘outrageously beautiful’. Queen Victoria thought her a ‘dear, lovely being’. When she came to England for her wedding she was received with great enthusiasm by the public and the poet laureate, Alfred Tennyson wrote: Sea King's daughter from over the sea, Alexandra! Saxon and Norman and Dane are we, But all of us Danes in our welcome of thee, Alexandra! Inscribed on the back with the names of the artist and the sitter and the date, 1864.