There are 35 paintings by 20 different artists hanging on the walls of Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House. This is one of two square paintings, arranged either side of a buffet table in the Dining Room, depicting the Coronation of King George V and Queen Mary in 1911. Here we see the moment in which Queen Mary, kneeling on a prie-dieu, is crowned by the Archbishop of Canterbury in Westminster Abbey.

Little is known about the artist, Alfred Pearse, who was sometimes referred to as ‘Captain Pearse’ following his time as a war artist. However, correspondence shows that he was invited to contribute these specific compositions to the Dolls’ House because he had already produced larger-scale watercolours of the Coronation, which had been bought for the Royal Collection in 1911. Indeed, this work is a scaled-down version of 923174.