Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’s eldest child was a talented pupil of Edward Corbould. She produced this watercolour, which is strongly influenced by Corbould’s work, at the age of seventeen. It records Charles Kean’s pioneering staging of the climactic scene in Shakespeare’s Richard II, with the pretender Bolingbroke, who is to usurp Richard II’s throne, entering London.

Presented by the artist to Queen Victoria on her birthday, 24 May 1857

No. 387