Queen Victoria Reviewing her Troops

Although signed - indistinctly - it is uncertain who is the artist of this exquisitely drawn portrait of Queen Victoria reviewing her troops. The image was engraved in 1857 by Walter Mason, recording J H Nicholson as the original artist. The present work appears to be signed John S or F Nicholson, or perhaps John Snidall or even Snidabli(!?), and is dated 1848, but we yet have to find a record of artists with such names. 

This drawing would appear to have been inspired by, but is not a direct copy of, a statuette of Queen Victoria on horseback, titled 'Statue of a female equestrian' by Alfred Guillaume Gabriel, Count d'Orsay, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1848 (no. 1327), which seems to have excited much popular interest. The image in the present work actually received much wider public attention than the statuette through engraved reproduction in magazines in England and America. 

The present work may be the orignnal drawing from which these reproductions derived. Although it is not reversed in contemporary or later prints, these would have needed to be depicted the "right way round" to accurately show how the Queen rode side-saddle.