Windsor Castle bust reattributed to Princess Victoria, 160 years after Albert's death

A stone bust of Prince Albert at Windsor Castle has been reattributed to Princess Victoria, the couple’s eldest daughter, more than 160 years after it was created. Experts say the 23-year-old Albert bust—depicted in his early twenties—was carved by Victoria in memory of her father after his untimely death in 1861, not by a celebrated sculptor as had long been believed.

Albert died in 1861 at age 42 from typhus, leaving Queen Victoria in mourning for the rest of her life. The bust’s creation, meanwhile, reveals a private family collaboration in which the young princess and her husband, the Crown Prince of Prussia, worked with their tutor, Hugo Hagen, to honor the late monarch’s consort. Victoria, who was 21 when her father died, wrote to her mother from Berlin about the work, saying, “It is a work which completely engrosses me… I feel very nervous… I hope you will like it. How I wish you were here to give advice!” The Queen responded with praise, noting only that the nose was a touch too thick.

The couple subsequently presented the sculpture to Queen Victoria as a Christmas gift in 1864, and it has since been on display in Windsor Castle’s St George’s Hall. The work’s long association with the royal collection—paired with the letter exchange and other archival material—has prompted scholars to reassess the attribution for a piece that has been part of the castle’s gallery for more than a century.

The discovery emerged from research led by art historian Jonathan Marsden, former director of the Royal Collection, who concluded that the bust could not have been the work of the sculptor Robert William Sievier, previously believed to have created it. Marsden’s work involved revisiting archival correspondence between Victoria and her daughter as part of a broader effort to barCode the Royal Collection’s sculpture program. His breakthroughs are included in the first comprehensive catalogue of European sculpture in the collection of His Majesty The King, a project that has stretched over three decades and is published jointly by Modern Art Press and the Royal Collection Trust.

The catalogue, titled European Sculpture in the Collection of His Majesty The King, situates the Windsor bust within a broader context of royal patronage and family memorial practices. The work’s reattribution to Princess Victoria aligns with a known pattern in which Queen Victoria and the princess collaborated on commemorative portraits and busts, particularly those connected to loved ones who had passed away or were far from Britain. The discovery also underscores the family’s deep involvement in the arts; Victoria and her sisters—Alice and Louise—received formal sculpting instruction, and they often studied alongside Hugo Hagen to perfect their craft.

The 1839 engagement ring for Albert, a small but poignant memory in the queen’s study, is one example of how sculpture served to preserve memory at Windsor. A bust of the young Prince Albert by Emil Wolff—presented by Albert to his fiancée in 1839—was kept by Queen Victoria near her desk in Buckingham Palace for decades, though its later identity faded from public memory. The Windsor bust’s reattribution sits within this broader history of private family sculpture, public display, and royal memory.

Marsden described the significance of the find: sculpture often fades into the background, yet closer examination can reveal works of quality and historical importance with stories of their own. By sharing discoveries through the catalogue and online resources, researchers aim to offer visitors a renewed appreciation of these works as living pieces of history. For scholars, the catalogue provides a vital new body of evidence that will inform future study of European sculpture in the royal collection.

Princess Victoria—the eldest child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and the first of nine siblings—grew up amid a culture that prized artistic achievement. Her engagement with sculpture was not merely a hobby; it reflected a family tradition of artistic production and a desire to memorialize loved ones through marble and stone. Victoria’s dedication extended beyond her own work: she and her sisters received sculpting instruction under Mary Thornycroft, a noted female sculptor who continued to contribute to the Crown’s artistic program while managing a large family of her own. Thornycroft’s involvement in court sculpture was notable precisely because she balanced a demanding artistic career with motherhood, illustrating the Royal Collection’s broader effort to include women in the practice and study of sculpture.

The Windsor bust sits within a lineage of royal commissions and private works intended to preserve memories of family members who influenced Britain’s cultural landscape. Victoria’s own efforts to preserve memories for both her mother and herself reflect a shared passion for sculpture as a medium of personal history and national heritage. The newly confirmed authorship by Victoria sheds light on the emotional labor behind the art—the quiet labor of a young woman who sought to honor her father through a tangible memorial that would endure in one of Britain’s most storied palaces.

As the first comprehensive catalogue of European sculpture in the royal collection draws to a close, researchers emphasize that this is only the beginning of a deeper, more nuanced understanding of how art within royal spaces has shaped public memory. The Windsor bust of Prince Albert, once attributed to a celebrated European sculptor, now stands as a testament to the creative agency of a princess who shared her father’s love of learning and the arts. Its reattribution invites visitors to re-examine other works across Windsor’s galleries and Buckingham Palace’s halls, where intimate familial moments are preserved in stone and marble as part of a national cultural ledger.