This life-size white marble statue of Princess Alice, when a child, representing Spring was the first commission of a series depicting four of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’s eldest children as allegories of the Seasons. The statue was commissioned in 1845 by Prince Albert to the British sculptor Mary Thornycroft and it was presented to Queen Victoria as a birthday present on 24th May 1845. Princess Alice is shown wearing a loose robe gathered in her left hand, with flowers cradled in the crook of her arm and holding a single flower in her raised right hand.

The group was completed in 1848 when the marble statue of Prince Alfred as Autumn was finalised. It was exhibited at the 1851 Great Exhibition in London. Queen Victoria was so pleased with the statues that she ordered copies in bronze and reductions in parian ware to add on to her collections.

Mary Thornycroft was the daughter of the sculptor John Francis and it was he who brought forward Mary’s work to Queen Victoria’s attention. Mary Thornycroft received her first commission from Queen Victoria in 1842 for a set of marble limbs of Prince Albert Edward, the Prince of Wales and Princess Victoria, the Princess Royal, also in the Royal Collection. She became one of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’s favourite sculptors and produced numerous busts and sculptures of their children. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert liked Thornycroft’s idealised depictions of children, for which she became best known, but also the naturalistic rendering of her compositions and her ability to represent likeness.

The allegories of the Seasons were commissioned for Osborne House, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’s summer residence in the Isle of Wight.