James Roberts (c. 1800-67)
Queen Victoria's Birthday Table at Osborne, 24 May 1856 dated 1856
Watercolour and bodycolour | 20.9 x 17.2 cm (whole object) | RCIN 926522
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A watercolour view of the birthday table set up for Queen Victoria's 37th birthday in 1856, decorated with floral garlands and flags and laden with gifts; hanging above the table can be seen Winterhalter's portrait of Princess Louise, Prince Arthur and Prince Leopold (RCIN 403193), and just visible on the right is Mary Thornycroft's marble sculpture of Princess Helena, Victoria and Albert's third daughter, as 'Peace' (RCIN 53096). Also prominent, in the centre of the table, is the fan decorated by the Princess Royal for her mother (25102). The flags hanging from the tops of the columns are those of the Ottoman empire, France and Sardinia, who fought together with the British against Russia in the Crimean War (peace was declared 30 March 1856). Signed at bottom right: J Roberts.
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 7 gns on 3 June 1856 for this drawing, including travelling expenses (RA PP2/17/6590)
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Medium and techniques
Watercolour and bodycolour
Measurements
20.9 x 17.2 cm (whole object)
Other number(s)
RL 26522
