Marriage of Queen Victoria, February 10, 1840

Marriage of Queen Victoria, February 10, 1840

Charles Eden Wagstaff

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Queen Victoria married Prince Albert in the Chapel Royal, St. James's Palace, on the morning of February 10, 1842. Hayter, who had painted the coronation, was commissioned to depict this ceremony also, and Wagstaff's engraving reproduces his 1842 painting (Royal Collection). The couple join hands before the Archbishop of Canterbury, and their union is witnessed by 56 members of the court and royal family. Most of the attendees sat to Hayter between 1840 and 1841, including Victoria in her "bridal dress, veil, wreath & all," and the artist even included himself sketching at lower right.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Marriage of Queen Victoria, February 10, 1840Marriage of Queen Victoria, February 10, 1840Marriage of Queen Victoria, February 10, 1840Marriage of Queen Victoria, February 10, 1840Marriage of Queen Victoria, February 10, 1840

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.