1 May 1851
Franz Xaver Winterhalter, 1 May 1851
Oil on canvas, 42″ x 51″
1851, Royal Collection, Windsor
For a closer view, click here.
This is most certainly my favourite Victorian portrait (Landseer’s Queen Victoria and Prince Albert at the Bal Costumé of 12 May 1842 is comely, but a tad too Gothick). 1 May 1851 depicts the ancient Duke of Wellington presenting a gift to his godson, Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught, on his first birthday. Prince Arthur is supported by Queen Victoria, and Prince Albert stands behind the Queen.
The Duke of Wellington presents a jewelled casket to Prince Arthur, with the Queen looking on. Wellington and the Prince happened to share the same birthday, May 1, and rather propitiously the Duke’s godson inherited the military tradition of his godfather, eventually becoming a field marshal.
Prince Albert gazes in the direction of the Crystal Palace, where his pet project, the Royal Exhibition, was taking place that year.
Meanwhile, the Queen and Prince Arthur form a rather Madonna-and-Child arrangement.
Source: the Web Gallery of Art, http://www.wga.hu/
8:52 am
Interesting you should bring up Wellington. I believe his mother was a Cusack?
9:39 am
Wellington’s mother was a certain Anne Hill, of whom I know nothing. However, there had been Cusack-Wesley (Wesley, later Wellesley, was the Duke’s family name) intermarriage further up the line from the Duke of Wellington.
In the fifteenth century, William de Wesley married one Katherine Cusack, dying without issue. In the next century, William Wesley of Dangan and Mornington married Elizabeth, the daughter of James Cusack of Portraine and Rathaldron. Their son George in turn married another Cusack, Genet, who was the daughter of the famous Sir Thomas Cusack, Lord Chancellor of Ireland.
Interestingly, Genet Cusack and George Wesley were actually second cousins. They had the same great-grandfather, Sir William de Wellesley of Dangan, whose sixth child (fourth daughter) Alison married John Cusack of Cussington, with whom she had a son, Sir Thomas himself.
3:47 pm
Thanks for your page on this painting. very interesting. I’m a marroccan student and I study painting from the XIXth century. This is my favourite one. Winterhalter is a great painter. Thanks again ! (I’m very interested in some new informations about painting. If you have some, please send it to me on my email adress. Thanks for all. Bye)
5:09 pm
re the wesley (wellesly) and cusacks, they seemed to have much fanicied their own, I derive from 4 variations of the cusack Wellesly connection inclusic of sir thomas cusack linage. May I ask where you fit into the irish cusack pie? regards Tina de Cusack