Painting of the Day: Princess Alice, 1851

Princess Alice
William Essex, 1851
The Royal Collection

Prince Albert collected miniature paintings of family members which he displayed in his dressing room at Buckingham Palace. Nearly seventy miniatures were arranged in what Albert called “a family tree.”


For their wedding anniversary in 1851, Queen Victoria presented Prince Albert with this miniature oil on copper painting of their third child, Princess Alice. The painting by William Essex is a miniature of a larger portrait by Franz Winterhalter. Victoria called the painting, “a perfect ‘bijou’.”