Described by Queen Victoria as ‘an indescribably like and beautiful picture of Aunt Julia’, the artist captures a wistfulness and sorrow in the sitter’s expression; this contrasts with the exuberance visible in the portrait of the sitter as a young girl, nearby. Her marriage to Grand Duke Constantine had failed and she later lived in Boissière, near Geneva, which appears in the background.

Commissioned by Queen Victoria, 1848