Constable's Photographic Portraits of Prince Albert and the Nobility



Constable had established his exclusive portrait studio in Brighton at a time when the nobility and gentry were delaying their visits to Brighton, restricting their period of stay at this fashionable seaside resort to the months of November, December and January. As Edmund M Gilbert commented in his study of Brighton and the growth of the English seaside resort, the aristocracy found that “residence in Brighton could be deferred until after the departure of the vulgarians”.

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Copy of a daguerreotype portrait of Prince Albert [1842] Attributed to William Constable's Photographic Institution. John Counsell, one of Constable's assistants, claimed to have operated the camera when Prince Albert sat for his portrait in Brighton on 7th March, 1842.

The Royal Family chose to visit Brighton even later in the season, perhaps to avoid the fashionable visitors. Queen Victoria, her consort Prince Albert, their two young children, Victoria the Princess Royal and Albert Edward, the Prince of Wales and members of Court took up residence at the Royal Pavilion on 10th February 1842. On 25th February, George Anson, Prince Albert’s Private Secretary, visited Constable’s Photographic Institution on Marine Parade and had his portrait taken. Just over a week later, on 5th March 1842, Prince Albert himself, together with two German cousins, arrived at Constable’s studio unannounced hoping to have their portraits taken but, as Constable’s sister Mrs Susanna Grece later recalled, the day was an "unlucky one for portrait taking" and the Prince and his cousins “like others this day could not get a good picture”.

The next day, Prince Albert’s German relatives Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg and his two sons Prince Augustus and Prince Leopold sat for their portraits and as later reported in the Sussex Express “expressed their astonishment at the rapidity of the process and the fidelity of the likenesses.” Encouraged by their response, Prince Albert called in at the Photographic Institution on the afternoon of 7th March in order to be photographed. According to the journal of Constable’s sister, Susanna Grece, Prince Albert posed a number of times that afternoon, but with limited success. “He had eight pictures, not all good”. The successful daguerreotypes were later photographed and two carbon prints have survived. These two small portraits of Prince Albert, dated 1842 and attributed to Constable, are believed to be the earliest surviving photographs of a member of the Royal Family.


The royal visit would have helped to establish William Constable’s reputation as a photographer to the aristocracy and members of the Court. Over the next ten years his sitters included the Duke of Devonshire, the Marchioness of Donegal, Lord Cavendish and the Grand Duchess of Parma. As Constable noted in 1848 “I have had many sitters from the ranks that are called noble”.

 

A daguerreotype portrait of Sir Hugh Gough taken in 1850 by an unknown photographer. Born in 1779, Gough fought with Wellington in the Napoleonic Wars.

 

A portrait miniature of a young officer by the artist George Engleheart [1750-1829]. When Sir Hugh Gough ( far left ) was an officer in Wellington's Army in the early part of the 19th Century, a visit to a portrait painter was the only way to secure a good likeness. By the time he was in his early sixties, Gough, like other wealthy men, could turn to a daguerreotype artist to make a small photographic portrait.

 

CLICK HERE TO CONTINUEConstable's Successful Photographic Studio

Website last updated: 23 December, 2002

 

This website is dedicated to the memory of Arthur T. Gill (1915-1987), Sussex Photohistorian

 




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