'Prince Albert'

Glass plate negative showing Carlo Marochetti's bust of Prince Albert (1819-61) created in 1849 (RCIN 31628). The prince is wearing a classical toga, clasped on his left shoulder. The work stands on acircular, stepped socle supported by a covered table.

Sittings for the present bust began in July 1848. The Queen recorded in her journal that she found the likeness 'extremely successful' and the artist 'very agreeable, pleasant and gentlemanlike'. Completed in marble the following year, it was subsequently reproduced in miniature, both in bronze and in Minton's Parian ware. After the Prince's death the bust took his place in Sir Joseph Noel Paton's group portrait of the royal family, In Memoriam. The same substitution was made in photographs, although it was more often William Theed's bust of 1862 that was used. Comparing the two busts, the Prince's eldest daughter Victoria, Crown Princess of Prussia, considered Marochetti's 'a better work of art' than Theed's, which was none the less in her opinion 'much more like' her father (letter to Queen Victoria, 24 March 1863).

The glass plate negative has been photographed showing the coated side and therefore the image appears laterally reversed. Prints form this negative do not seem to exist in the Collection.