A portrait of Princess Victoria in coloured chalks. The princess is seated; she reaches up with her right hand to grasp some flowers in an urn, and holds more flowers in her left hand; she turns her head towards a parrot sitting on an ornamental stand to right. A view, perhaps Windsor Castle (?) in the background. Arched top, paper torn lower right; inscribed just next to this (possibly in place of a missing signature): John Hayter.

This is a preparatory drawing for a lithograph published in September 1830 by William Sharpe which was dedicated to the Duchess of Kent, Princess Victoria's mother, and lettered 'Drawn from Life at Kensington Palace' (see RCIN 630163.2 for an impression of this lithograph). In the published print, the background is different to that drawn here. A sheet of studies for the princess's arms, the dog and the parrot in this composition is in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Three other versions of the whole composition are also known. Two are in the Hohenlohe-Langenburg collection and were presumably sent by Princess Victoria or the Duchess of Kent to Feodore, Duchess of Hohenlohe-Langenburg and the princess's half-sister; one of these is signed and dated 1830 by the artist, and both are inscribed by Princess Victoria with the dates 28 and 31 July 1830, which are presumably the days on which she sat to Hayter for this work. The third version was sold at auction 11 August 2020 (Bellmans, West Sussex) as from the collection of Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester (one of Princess, later Queen, Victoria's great-grandsons); this is also signed and dated by the artist, and the background is closer to the published lithograph than in the present drawing.

John Hayter was the younger brother of Sir George Hayter, who worked extensively for the royal family from 1815 and who was appointed Painter of Portrait and History by Queen Victoria on her accession to the throne in 1837.