Etching of Victoria, Princess Royal and King Edward VII, as Prince of Wales. Whole length figures in Gotha peasant costume. Vignette with English inscription below.

Another impression of RCIN 816228. An etching showing Victoria, Princess Royal and Albert Edward, Prince of Wales dressed in in Gotha peasant costume. After a watercolour by Sir William Ross (RCIN 913799). Princess Victoria is shown to the left. She is shown full-length, standing and facing right in profile. She is holding a bunch of flowers in one hand. The Princes of Wales is shown to the right. He is shown full-length, standing and facing left. He is holding a stick over one shoulder and is wearing a tricorne hat. A rake is shown in the background to the right. Inscribed lower centre: Victoria – and – Albert as Gotha Peasants. –
Inscribed lower left: VR del: after Sir W. Ross. Jan: 1845.

Queen Victoria's first etching was made on 28 August 1840, under the guidance of Sir George Hayter who was working on his oil painting of the marriage of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert (RCIN 407165) at the time.

Hayter was responsible for the acid-biting of all of the early plates but was soon replaced in this task by Queen Victoria's dresser, Marianne Skerrett. The London dealers and publishers Colnaghi & Co were also used for some of the more complicated plates. A printing press was set up at Buckingham Palace in 1840 by the firm of Holdgate but some of the royal couple's plates were also printed by a Mr Brown of Castle-Street, Windsor, in the autumn of that year

Queen Victoria's first child Victoria, Princess Royal was born on 21 November 1840. The nursery life of the growing brood of royal children offered the young queen a wealth of inspiration for her own painting, drawing and etching. Queen Victoria's two eldest children were dressed as Gotha peasants as a surprise for their Mother's twenty-fifth birthday on 24 May 1844.

Scott-Elliott no. 60