As others see us

Watercolour paintings served as an important visual record of Victoria and Albert’s lives–both of whom were keen and knowledgeable collectors– as well as a comfort in times of sorrow, says Huon Mallalieu

- Huon Mallalieu

SOON after her marriage in 1858, Prince Albert wrote to his eldest daughter that: ‘We only rarely buy works of the Water Colour school for ourselves, but we have made presents to each other of the pictures. Thus the pleasure that we take in them is doubled.’ In fact, Victoria and Albert were both enthusiastic watercolour collectors, but they were also well aware of the need to avoid the conspicuous extravagance of the Queen’s uncle, George IV, in art collecting and architectural projects. Watercolours were an economical field in which to collect and, in the light of today’s knee-jerk criticism of monies proposed for work on Buckingham Palace, it is worth noting that, in their redecoration, the couple was scorned for cheese-paring.

Victoria had collected drawings since early girlhood, as it was a time when young ladies’ albums were very much the fashion. In 1834, as a princess, she visited the ‘Old’ Watercolour Society’s annual exhibition for the first time and, four years later, returned as Queen. Although she made a number of purchases on that occasion, she refused its petition to become a royal society, honouring it only in 1881. Echoing his wife, Prince Albert was a frequent buyer at both the ‘Old’ and the ‘New’ Societies—true to artistic tradition, there had been a split in 1832, which persists to this day —and, in 1854, Copley Fielding, president of the Old Society, regretted his inability to be present for a royal visit, as ‘Prince Albert never fails to make it agreeable to those who accompany him through the exhibition’.