There are 35 paintings by 20 different artists hanging on the walls of Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House. This painting of Queen Victoria and her family decorates the Dining Room.

Although Ambrose McEvoy contributed an original composition to another part of the Dolls’ House (408557), this painting was simply a scaled-down copy of Franz Xaver Winterhalter’s The Royal Family in 1846 (405413). Winterhalter’s painting was still considered the pinnacle of royal family portraiture, and indeed the 1913 family portrait of George V by John Lavery was commissioned to be ‘after the manner’ of The Royal Family in 1846.

In addition to the sacrifice of detail inevitable on such a small scale, McEvoy also had to condense the composition to fit to a square rather than rectangular canvas. Yet McEvoy still successfully conveys the regality of the seated monarch as well as the dynamism and sentimentality of her five young children. Writing in The Book of the Queen's Dolls' House (1924), art historian Lionel Cust expressed great admiration for this little copy: ‘I marvelled at the skill and reticence with which Mr McEvoy had restrained the somewhat efflorescent ripeness of his usual method within the strictly confined limits of this august composition. Perhaps it was the unaccustomed scale which had this effect upon the artist!’