Grand Duchess Alice of Hesse, Princess of Great Britain

[grandduchessella]

This is most interesting Grandduchessella.  With all the splendid backgrounds that State Rooms could provide it is amazing how the Royal Family was satisfied to stand in front of a plain screen. Considering that portraiture usually included the accoutrements of Royalty, photography seems to have brought them to our level. Perhaps Mayall used his props for his other customers as well!

It would've been fun to walk in and say 'I'll have the Golden Jubilee background, please'.  

I guess he schlepped the backgrounds around. For GV&QM the photographs were taken at Buckingham Palace but the background was supplied by James Stack Lauder (aka J. Lafayette) who was the photographer. He recorded that he used a "Gothic style backdrop with the ecclesiastical motif I.H.S., flanked by roses, a giltwood chair in the French taste"

[Alicky1872]

For those who are unsure, this pic was taken at Bertie's wedding because if you look closely at the painting of Bertie's Wedding, Alice & Louis who are somewhere in the background are dressed the same as this photo and in this photo Alice, by the look of her face, is pregnant

I finally found out when this picture was taken. MAY 1863, two months after the wedding--and one month after Alice gave birth to Princess Victoria at Windsor. Yes, the clothing they're wearing in the picture is what they wore at the wedding, they were just photographed in it two months after. (Alice's dress obviously being taken in a bit at the waist!) The painting wasn't finished till a year after the wedding, and during that time, the painter (Frith) was collecting photographs of the people featured in the painting, for reference, etc.

[bluetoria]

Oh Blanche, I wish!  

Mrs Eddy, you are far lovelier than this!  

To get back on topic, this photo from QV's family, which was taken at the time of Bertie's wedding, shows, I think what QV would have thought of people being photographed when pregnant. Alice is virtually swamped in that enormous cape!

[Rosamund]

When I first saw this photograph I wondered why Alice had a carpet wrapped around her!  The other girls must have been bewildered, in their innocence, by their sister's sudden lapse of taste!  

Were any of the Princesses photographed in their bridesmaids' dresses?  Such as when posing for the artist.

[grandduchessella]

To get back on topic, this photo from QV's family, which was taken at the time of Bertie's wedding, shows, I think what QV would have thought of people being photographed when pregnant. Alice is virtually swamped in that enormous cape!

Considering the dictates of the time it's pretty surprising she was photographed in such a prominent position--especially in light of the fact that the images were widely distributed to the public. In other images though she's in the background where you can't necessarily tell if you didn't know her condition already.

Rosamund--I always thought it looked like a carpet too! I wonder if they just grabbed it off the floor and draped it around her. She has a more attractive cloak in other photos.

[bluetoria]

Rosamund--I always thought it looked like a carpet too! I wonder if they just grabbed it off the floor and draped it around her.

It certainly looks like it!!   She must have been sweltering.

There is a quotation from Vicky in which she is very shocked to see Irene appearing 'in front of gentlemen & children in that condition.' Considering the number of children the Victorians had, it must have been very difficult to be constantly having to hide away.

[Romanov_fan]

We know quite a bit about Queen Victoria's views- basically sumned up well here, on Russian marriages. It is harder to say about Alice, especially as her daughters were fairly young at the time of her death. She would most likely have supported the marriages of her daughters, had she been sure that is what they wanted, and it was. She might have had more reservations about Ella's marriage than that of Alix, perhaps more because of what Grand Duke Sergei was like, than the fact he was a member of the Russian Imperial Family.

[jfkhaos]

I have recently finished reading (for the umpteenth time) Alice's letters with the forward by her sister Helena, and although I don't really recall anything negative about the Russians and marrying into the Imperial family, I do recall that Alice wanted her daughters to grow up without a view of the necessity of marrying for marrying's sake.  She did not have the desire to push her daughters into marriage, but wanted them to grow up with a mind more on public service and self-satisfaction rather than marrying because everyone else did.

[Romanov_fan]

Well, I wasn't even sure if Princess Alice left on record any of her views on marriage which could be applied to when her daughters got married. They were pretty young at the time of her death, although they did marry yiung in that era. I think she would have supported the marriages if that's what her daughters wanted, but most likely not pressed them into marrying if they did not want it, unlike so many royals of the period. Alice might have been very pleased with the later path of Ella ( after her husband's death), although she might not have understand the motivations of her marriage to Sergei.