Queen Victoria visited Portsmouth on 21st March 1842.
Ubsdell produced the celebratory scroll that was presented, and went to London to paint miniatures of the members of Queen Victoria’s court, so that their images could be included in his painting to record the event.
The painting was destroyed by German bombing of Portsmouth in WW2 but gifted Portrait Artist Katie Chappell has managed to create a section of Ubsdell’s painting from a surviving grainy photograph of the event and numerous other pictorial references.
Queen Victoria is in white (centre) with Prince Albert (right), and in order, in the back row, (left) Baroness Portman, Cecil Cope Jenkinson, 3rd Earl of Liverpool, Archdeacon Samuel Wilberforce and the Earl of Hardwicke.
Ubsdell, working from his preparatory drawings was to include these people in his painting ‘Sermon at St Lawrence’ currently on display at Portsmouth City Museum.
Katie Chappell has recently had an exhibition entitled ‘Career Women’ in Colchester, see http://www.katie-chappell.com/ Some of her boldly executed work is shown below.
