Queen Victoria sketch from album, £3200 at Roseberys.
An album of drawings including sketches by a teenage Princess Victoria (1819-1901) hammered down for £3200 (plus 26% buyer’s premium) at Roseberys on July 9, bettering the estimate of £1500-2500.
The four drawings by the future monarch included that of a woman on horseback, a veiled woman on horseback and a knight on horseback all dated July 1833. The other is dated 1838 and shows a seated woman with a crown and sash. The 1833 sketches are inscribed original sketch by the Royal Highness The Princess Victoria. (Her Majesty).
The album also includes sketches by Queen Victoria’s portrait painter Sir George Hayter (1792-1871), including the monarch in her coronation and parliamentary robes. The album was probably assembled by his daughter-in-law Augusta Penelope Hayter (née Kirby 1818-1888) and came with other royal ephemera including an 1821 invitation to the coronation of King George IV at Westminster Abbey and an 1825 invitation to the coronation of Charles X at Reims Cathedral.
It's not the first time a young a piece of Queen Victoria’s handiwork has come to auction. In May last year, two oil paintings of floral still-lifes fetched £10,000 at Hansons London, while her sketchbook of watercolours was snapped up by the Royal Collection Trust ahead of an auction at Charterhouse in March 2023.
The latest sale was part of Roseberys’ Old Master, British and European Pictures auction.
