A pretty statue - some may even call it beautiful even though it doesn't quite fit our ideas of the looks of the one it depicts: Queen Victoria (24th May 1819–22nd January 1901) depicted by the sculptor as the 18 years old queen at her coronation. Victoria's reign ran for 63 years and 216 days, and one of the ultimate heydays of it was when The British Parliament granted her the additional title of Empress of India in 1877. Actually that seems to have been the doing of the wise Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, 1. Earl of Beaconsfield who knew that the queen just loved flattery and the new title of Empress certainly was flattering.
Besides, knowing the queen as he did, he must have known that she wouldn't be too happy when her daughter and namesake, Victoria, came into her title as German empress which were bound to happen as her husband, Friedrich, was to inherit the title from his father. However, Vicky, as this English born German empress was called, didn't enjoy that title for long as her husband, Emperor Friedrich, died 99 days after becoming the emperor of Germany in 1888.
Vicky, Kaiserin Friedrich
Vicky took after her mother, but was prettier although not a raving beauty as one of her sisters, the fourth daughter of Queen Victoria: Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll (1848-1939).
She, who was the fourth daughter of Queen Victoria, is the sculptor who made the statue of her mother as a young woman, ready to take on the obligations as a queen. It was erected in 1893 and received a grade II in 1969. Louise became a widow in 1914 when her homosexual husband, John Campbell, the 9. Duke of Argyll, died. There have been some weird stories of their ill-suited marriage which was more of convenience than anything else: He liked boys and men, and she had a fling with one of her art teachers. Times were different then and both of them had to dance to the pipes of morality.
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Louise as an elderly, but still quite pretty woman
Wikipedia
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