Triumphant return after 20 years for Victoria portrait

A 20 year project to find a portrait of Queen Victoria to Cliffe Castle Museum has finally been completed.

The painting by portraitist Lowes Cato Dickinson is one of the few images of Victoria in the early years of her widowhood.

It is full of references to her beloved late husband Prince Albert and shows his handkerchief lying on her knee. She wears his portrait miniature on her wrist and her veil is held in place by a sapphire and diamond coronet designed for her by Prince Albert in 1842.

It was bought for Cliffe Castle Museum in Keighley in the 1880s by textile magnate Henry Isaac Butterfield, but was thought to have been lost when the building’s contents were sold in the 1940s.

Museum staff searched for the portrait for more than 20 years and research showed it had been removed to Thoresby Hall, Nottinghamshire, in the 1950s. It was removed to store in the 1980s and later sold to an antiques dealer who had put it on show at a sales centre in Nottinghamshire. A member of museum staff miraculously spotted the painting last year during a chance visit and recognised it as the lost work.

The portrait was put on display at the museum in August but now its elaborate hand-carved frame has now been finished with the installation of a re-carved and gilded gold crown.

The carving of St Edward’s crown had to be reproduced after it broke off the frame during a move in the 1980s and the fragments were thrown away. It was recreated from early photographs of the painting at Cliffe Castle showing the frame intact. Using digital imaging, staff were able to calculate the crown’s size and detailing.

Specialist conservation carver Graham Gamble worked it up to a full-size cardboard model, which was set up on the frame. After amendments it was carved in lime wood over a three-month period. It was finally handed over to Keighley-based gilder Pam Keeton, who put back the burnished gold finish of the original.

Funding for the £1,500 conservation work was paid for by the Friends of Cliffe Castle.

Maggie Pedley, Bradford Council’s museums and galleries manager, said: “It is a wonderful piece of conservation and has brought new life to a very important Victorian work of art.”