Description
A watercolour showing a view of French peasants at Bricquebec. Two women are shown full-length, standing in a street. Both women are dressed in dark skirts over white blouses and tall white hats. The woman to the left is shown facing forward and is holding a baby on her hip. Inscribed below: Woman & Child - Cherbourg - VR from recollection Aug: 18. 1857. The woman to the right is shown holding a jug at her side. Inscribed below: Woman at Briquebec Normandy Aug: 18. 1857. Queen Victoria and her family sailed to Cherbourg from Osborne on 17 August 1857 in the Royal Yacht, Victoria and Albert. The Royal Family stayed on the Royal Yacht, making visits to the mainland during the day, until returning to Osborne on 19 August 1857. On 18 August, Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and their children, went on a day trip to Bricquebec, just outside Cherbourg. They visited the old Château there and waited in the Le Vieux Chateau Inn, while their horses rested. Queen Victoria described the visit in her journal entry of that day and records how they "decided to wait upstairs in a small bedroom, where we sat with the Children & Ladies, Vicky & I sketching the picturesque women, & children standing below." Queen Victoria took a particular interest in ethnography and national costumes and when travelling she regularly sketched peasants in traditional dress. She described the peasants that she saw on her journey to Bricquebec as all wearing "caps, many the regular Couchaise ones, & full woollen skirts, with aprons, & fichus, the caps without exception dazzlingly white & clean."
Descriptive Medium: 'Pencil, watercolour', 'pencil, watercolour'
Image Licence
All Rights Reserved
Image Credit
© Royal Collection Trust
Location
Bricquebec-en-Cotentin, Normandy, France
Country
France
Tags
Category
People & Society
