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| Bust of Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge, Duchess of Teck Baron Carlo Marochetti, 1857 Crown Copyright The Royal Collection Image Courtesy of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II |
Sculpted in 1857 by the Baron Carlo Marochetti (1805-1868), this marble bust depicts Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge, the Duchess of Teck (1833-97).
The bust was commissioned as a gift from the Duchess of Teck to her friend Lady Marian Alford. As was often the case with objects related to the Royal Family, many decades later, Queen Mary managed to get the Alford family to return the bust to the Royal Collection. Her Majesty wrote of the bust thusly when entering it into her catalog:
Marble bust of the Duchess of Teck, as a young woman with roses in her hair and double string of pearls around her neck. She looks to her right.
The catalog also contains a notation copied from the memoirs of the Duchess of Teck wherein Princess Mary Adelaide describes her delight at her visits to Marochetti’s studio in June of 1857 to sit for the bust. Queen Mary, after being introduced to the sculptor by her mother, had long been an admirer of Marochetti who had been one of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’s favorite sculptors and from whom they commissioned fifteen works.
Years after this bust was created and, then, returned to the Royal Family, when Marochetti’s grandson visited Buckingham Palace, Queen Mary took delight in showing off this bust—her favorite—to the young man, making sure that he knew how much his grandfather’s work was appreciated and that the bust was one of the highlights of her monumental collection.
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