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Antoine Claudet [Attributed to]
Queen Victoria (1819-1901)
1854, April
Daguerreotype, and viewer
The Royal Collection
RCIN 7204
LL/90801
Hand-tinted stereoscopic daguerreotype of Queen Victoria. The image shows her standing with her head turned to the right and her left hand resting on the chair beside her. She is wearing a pale blue dress with a deeper blue sash and has flowers in her hair. She holds a handkerchief in her left hand and a fan in her right. There are flowers on the table to the left. The two images are set beside each other in a brown leather case with a blue interior. A pair of binoculars are mounted in the bottom of the case, and can be raised to view the twin daguerreotypes.
Writing to D. Hastings in April 1854, the photographer Antoine Claudet shared that he had "the honour to be commanded by her Majesty to take my daguerreotype apparatus to Buckingham Palace in order to take her portrait for the stereoscope and this morning h[er] M[ajesty] has given me a sitting and I have succeeded to take four good portraits of her". [Extract from 'A Royal Passion: Queen Victoria and Photography', ed. Anne Lyden, exh.cat. Getty, Los Angeles (2013), p.136]. This portrait is most likely to be one of the portraits mentioned by Claudet.
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