Additional Images

Note:

This small bust by the Milanese commercial art founder Antonio Pandani is loosely based on the images of Queen Victoria commissioned from Sir Joseph Edgar Boehm (1834-90), the Queen’s favourite portrait sculptor, in preparation for her Golden Jubilee in 1887. The principal statue was that commissioned from Boehm in 1885 for Sydney, intended to commemorate not only the Golden Jubilee, but also the centennial of New South Wales, unveiled in 1888 (Stocker 1988, pp. 105-08, cat. 281, pl. 95). Several derivations were made, including a full-length bronze statue of the queen for Castle Hill, Windsor, made in 1886-87 (Stocker 1988, pp. 108-09, cat. 295, pls. 97-98), of which there is a plaster bust-length version in the National Portrait Gallery (NPG 858). The Windsor statue was published in a commemorative volume for the queen’s Golden Jubilee (Holmes 1887, p. 45). It is very likely to have been from this or a similar published image that Pandiani drew his image of the monarch for his small bust. The dress and ornaments have been much simplified, in particular the rich patterned brocade of Queen Victoria’s dress in Boehm’s sculptures, already simplified in illustrations such as that in The Queen’s Pictures, has been transformed into a somewhat bizarre pattern with a band of large scrolling foliage contrasting with heavily punched patterns. Evidence that Pandiani had used a photograph comes from the back of the bust, where the dress and the veil seem entirely invented.
-National Trust Collections