JAMES ROBERTS (C. 1800-67)
Queen Victoria's Birthday Table at Osborne House, 24 May 1861
dated 1861Watercolour and bodycolour over slight indications in pencil with some scratching out | 18.3 x 24.5 cm (sheet of paper) | RCIN 919874
Victoria and Albert also decorated present tables for family birthdays. They often gave one another works of art, and on both this occasion and for Christmas 1850 (see Roberts’s Christmas watercolour), the Prince bought his wife paintings by a female artist they both admired, Emma Gaggiotti Richards. This was the last of Victoria’s birthday tables captured in watercolour before Albert’s death.