A version on ivory of the watercolour painted by Josefine Swoboda of the Queen at Balmoral in May 1893 (450365). On 27 May 1893 Queen Victoria wrote to the Princess Royal: 'Fr. [Fräulein] Swoboda who paints so beautifully & has done again some lovely things – is also painting me & I think it will be vy. good'. A few days later she reported: 'Fr. Swoboda is making a vy. good likeness of me'.

Josefine Swoboda was the daughter of Eduard Swoboda, painter, of Vienna, and sister of the portrait painter Rudolf Swoboda, whose series of portraits of Indian subjects hang at Osborne House. She worked as a portrait painter in watercolour, and was employed by Queen Victoria between 1890 and 1899 to paint her family and her court. A great number of these watercolours, of exceptional softness, remain in the Royal Collection.

Signed and dated in red paint lower right Jos. Swoboda / 1893