A watercolour of Buckingham Palace, depicting John Nash's garden front before Edward Blore's alterations of 1846-9. A figure with a dog walking beyond the lake may represent the Queen. Signed and dated, lower left: C R Stanley Augt 17. 1839.

This watercolour shows the west front of Buckingham Palace seen from the garden. The Palace had been built for the Queen’s uncle, George IV, but it remained incomplete at his death in 1830 and progressed little under his brother and successor, William IV. After Queen Victoria acceded to the throne on 20 June 1837, more than three hundred workmen had to be employed to make it habitable for her arrival there on 14 July. This ‘very pretty’ watercolour was a present to Queen Victoria from her mother in 1839. It shows the west front of Buckingham Palace, which had been designed by John Nash for George IV. The watercolour became the first work to be mounted in the Queen’s View Album series.

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert compiled nine View Albums during their marriage. These albums contained watercolours and drawings documenting their life together and were arranged in chronological order. The albums were dismantled in the early twentieth century and rebound in new volumes both in a different arrangement and with additional items, but a written record of their original contents and arrangement still exists.

Text adapted from Victoria & Albert: Art & Love (London, 2010)