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1 of 253523 objects
James Roberts (c. 1800-67)
Queen Victoria's Birthday Table at Osborne, 24 May 1852 drawn 1852
Watercolour and bodycolour | 21.4 x 17.6 cm (whole object) | RCIN 926518
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A watercolour view of the birthday table set up for Queen Victoria's 33rd birthday in 1852, decorated with floral garlands and laden with gifts; the two circular paintings hanging on the wall are Winterhalter's portraits of the Prince of Wales and Prince Alfred (RCINs 401022 and 401024), and a drawing by the Queen's eldest daughter, Victoria, Princess Royal, of a classical head in profile can be seen laying propped up in the centre of the table (RCIN 981018). The decorations in the room include the initials of the royal children around the columns either side of the table.
Victoria and Albert commissioned and collected many watercolours throughout their marriage documenting aspects of their public and private lives together, including a sequence of watercolours depicting the temporary birthday tables created on the occasion of the Queen’s birthday, 24th May. From 1848 until Albert's death in 1861, Victoria spent all of her birthdays at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. Every year a tradition which had begun in the Queen's childhood was observed. This was the arranging of a birthday table, laden with presents and embellished with floral arrangements, which by the second decade of her married life included more and more elaborate decorations; on her birthday in 1856 the Queen recorded that the room was “most tastefully decorated & arranged in quite a new way. The gilt cages with doves & the flags, had a charming effect.” Joseph Nash painted four depictions of these tables in the 1840s, but from 1851 James Roberts was given the commission. After Prince Albert’s death in 1861, the birthday tables were only photographed and never again painted.
This watercolour was originally interleaved by the Queen in her journal, which no longer survives.Provenance
Commissioned by Queen Victoria; Roberts was paid £14 for two watercolours at Osborne in June 1852, one of which was probably this one (RA ADDT/232/18)
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Medium and techniques
Watercolour and bodycolour
Measurements
21.4 x 17.6 cm (whole object)
Other number(s)
RL 26518
