Queen Victoria & Prince Albert Brought to life from their portraits (with realism edits!)
Re-creation of Victoria from her 1843 portrait. This version of Victoria is created with “realism” edits, using influences from near-contemporary photographs. Her nose was slightly larger and more downturned in real life than portrayed here. She also had a shorter neck and less defined lips.
Queen Victoria and her consort Albert have one of the most fascinating stories in English history. Victoria came to the throne at only 18, after a sheltered childhood. The handsome Albert of Saxe Coburg was an instant attraction for Victoria, who admired his kindness and intellect. With Victoria’s power and Albert’s cunning, the two created a more technologically advanced England. Sadly, Albert died at the young age of 42, leaving Victoria with 9 children and deep in mourning. England, growing to the height of its size, still flourished despite a withdrawn Queen.
Studying the appearance of Victoria and Albert is fascinating, because their lives straddled the time between portrait painting and photography as the method for documenting what a monarch looks like.
Since we know what Victoria and Albert look like in their later years, I’ve re-creating portraits of them young, what they looked like soon after becoming Queen and Consort. I also created them with “realism” edits, using some early photographs from around the same time to create versions of them without the portrait beautifications.
Victoria and Albert were the first royal family to be photographed - essentially the first to have the opportunity to have their private lives, a more casual side of the family, made public. According to the Royal Collection Trust, the royal family was photographed many times starting from the mid 1840s. William Bambridge in particular was employed by the family, creating a collection known as the “Queen’s Private Negatives”. Although it’s easy for us to view them now, these were kept private by the family for years. It was only in 1860 that Victoria allowed a series of more informal photos to be viewed by the public. It changed the distant relationship between the Monarch and her subjects, making them feel like they knew her more personally.
I’ve used this image of Victoria from 1843 for my re-creation, when she would have been just 24 years old. Victoria had a certain delicate beauty in her youth. Her huge blue eyes and cupids-bow lips are indeed backed up by photography. They can also be seen in her children, many of whom are her complete dopplegangers.
The beautification of Victoria becomes much more apparent as she reached midlife around the age of 40. We see her here in 1859, painted by Franz Winterhalter. A companion portrait was made of Prince Albert, and Victoria loved them so much that they were considered their official likenesses for years to come.
For reference, this is a photograph of Victoria a year later in 1860. And this is Albert around the same time, close to the time of his death. So what’s clear is while they bear a great resemblance to the real people, there’s a general slimming of faces, smoothing of chins, making eyes huge and bright, and fine-tuning of features that’s evident here.
Now, it’s not their actual appearances that matter, but the information we can gain from seeing how Monarchs have been portrayed and beautified in portraits for centuries. I think that’s really fascinating.
Albert, also created with realism edits.