In the early 1850s, Prince Albert and Queen Victoria began a project to document their large and expanding family through the relatively recently invented medium of photography. The albums, entitled 'Portraits of Royal Children’, feature a range of posed and more informal portrait photographs of the royal children. The albums, organised chronologically, document marriages, confirmations, births, parties and trips abroad. Initially, the albums document the royal couple’s nine children. However, following Victoria, Princess Royal’s marriage in 1858, the albums contain documentation of the wider and growing royal family, including the children’s partners and Prince Albert and Queen Victoria’s first grandchildren, Prince Wilhelm (1859- 1941) and Princess Charlotte (1860-1919).

Following Prince Albert’s death in 1861, Queen Victoria continued to compile the ‘Portraits of Royal Children’ albums. At her death in 1901, she had compiled 44 ‘Portraits of Royal Children’ albums.