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The bearers of presents to the Queen from the Sultan of Morocco

Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2018 | All Rights Reserved

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Date

c.1850

Artist

John Absolon (1815-1895)

Collection

Royal Collection Trust

Image Link

https://www.rct.uk/collection/920215

Description

Four men in a landscape, with two seated on the ground and two standing. The four men depicted in this watercolour are identifiable as Hadj Abdullah Lamartz, Kaid Abdelkrim, Hassan Boocheta and Boojman, who were the attendants who accompanied presents sent to Queen Victoria in 1850 by Muley Abderahuran, a cousin of the Sultan of Morocco. Abderahuran had received excellent medical treatment in Gibraltar through the British Government, and expressed his gratitude by making a gift of a lion, nine horses, a panther, four ostriches and six gazelles, sent in April. Queen Victoria wrote in her journal for 9 April of making a visit to the Zoological Gardens in Regents Park to see the ostriches, which she though "beautiful and immense". During the mens' visit to London they were shown around the city and taken to Windsor. Queen Victoria received two of them at Buckingham Palace and sketched portraits of them in her Journal. The Queen also, through the agency of her dresser Maria Skerrett, commissioned Absolon to draw this portrait to be placed in one of the nine Souvenir Albums that she compiled with Prince Albert during their marriage. These albums contained watercolours and drawings documenting their life together and were arranged in chronological order. The albums were dismantled in the early twentieth century and rebound in new volumes both in a different arrangement and with additional items, but a written record of their original contents and arrangement still exists.

Image Licence

All Rights Reserved

Image Credit

Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2018

Location

Morocco

Country

Medium

Tags

Dress
Hills
Royalty
Weapons

Category

People & Society

Glossary
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© 2024 Watercolour World | Technology by The Museum Platform

© 2024 Watercolour World | Technology by The Museum Platform