This is a copy by Hartmann after a portrait-type which originated with Von Angeli’s portrait of Princess Alice with her husband and children (RCIN 408904). Hartmann was paid £50 3s 8d for the copy on 31 August 1880 and it was placed in the Queen’s Sitting-Room at Osborne. The copy is probably the one which the Queen had been given by the Grand Duke on 31 March 1880, during her visit to Darmstadt: ‘an admirable copy (only the head) of Angeli’s picture of darling Alice’. The frame is by Thomas.

Princess Alice (1843-78) was the third child and second daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Known for her sweet nature, she often took on the role of peacekeeper in the royal household. The marriage of her older sister, Princess Victoria, in 1858 left Alice as the eldest daughter at home, and the Queen and Prince Albert both turned to her for company. In a popular edition of Alice's letters to the Queen, published in 1885, Princess Helena, her sister, described her as ‘loving Daughter and Sister, the devoted Wife and Mother, and a perfect, true Woman’. In 1862 she married Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse.

In this portrait the Princess appears in evening dress with the badges of the Orders of Victoria and Albert, the Crown of India, and Louise of Prussia.