A watercolour showing a Dutch peasant woman at Terneuzen. She is shown full-length, facing right in profile. She is wearing a dark blue skirt with a green blouse and bright yellow and orange scarf and a white cap. Inscribed below pasted down sheet: Girl at Ternüsen.
Inscribed lower left: VR del from recollection

On 10 August 1852, Queen Victoria set sail from Osborne to Belgium on the Royal Yacht, Victoria & Albert. The Royal family stayed at the Château de Laeken with Queen Victoria's uncle, King Leopold of Belgium, from 12 to 14 August 1852. On 15 August 1852, while stuck on the continent due to bad sailing conditions in the channel, Queen Victoria and her family sailed to Flushing but were forced to abandon their plans to anchor there and return to the River Schelde. The Royal family, determined to see part of Holland, went on shore at Turneuzen. In her journal entry of that day, Queen Victoria records the dress of the peasants she saw in Terneuzen in great detail, describing the women's dress as "very neat & picturesque & ancient looking" with "little white caps held with golden pins, [which] are very pretty & peculiar", stating that "It certainly reminds one of the dresses of the time of Charles I".
Queen Victoria took a particular interest in ethnography and national costumes and when travelling she regularly sketched peasants in local dress.