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Osborne House

(vero;2022-May-30)

Osborne House is the site not to be missed when visiting the Isle of Wight. We were there at 10am right at the opening and headed first for the grounds, Swiss Cottage and the Beach. This was a good idea as hardly anybody was around and we had the place nearly for ourselves. We started meeting the unavoidable crowds as we returned to the Palace. We experienced Osborne as a shrine to everything Victorian: room after room, all sorts of memorabilia was on display, with Victoria here, Albert there, and the children in between, and on top of it, an haphazard accumulation of paintings and sculptures from the Royal Collection without any obvious logic to our eyes, it all felt a bit too much. However, we found the room dedicated to Victoria's and Albert's descendance featuring the family trees and links to European monarchies most interesting and we must admit that seeing Victoria's deathbed is quite something. But for us the best came at the end: the great Durbar room and the corridor leading to it, adorned with impressive and realistic paintings representing people from the Empire's Jewel, India; it was the highlight of our day, see the second photo gallery below for Rudolf Swoboda's portraits of Indian people.

Queen Victoria (born May 1819, reigned June 1837-December 1901) and Prince Albert (1819-1861) bought the Osborne estate on the Isle of Wight in 1845, the perfect spot for the summer family home they were dreaming of: easily accessible from London, in a rural setting with views to the sea, the ideal place to escape from court life. Victoria used Osborne for over fifty years; here she was able to accommodate private and official life, enjoying her family while also entertaining foreign royalty and visiting ministers. This picture shows the north-east facade.

The Pavilion (right), completed in 1846, was the first wing to be built and housed the private rooms of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Today, many of the rooms are still filled with original furniture and works of art they accumulated over the years, while the planting in the grounds made to Albert’s designs still survive. On the bottom right of the picture is one of the many alcoves scattered around the grounds where Victoria liked to pause and enjoy being outside.

View from the upper terrace onto the lower terrace and down to the Solent.

One of the three dolphins serving as a pedestal to a fountain of the upper terrace.

The grand corridor of the Pavilion, where many pieces of the sculpture collection are displayed. The first room visitors enter in Osborne House is dedicated to the birthday presents Victoria and Albert made to each other, mostly works of art, of which many are now on display through the house and particularly in the grand corridor. The birthdays of Victoria and Albert were very special occasions and the couple always tried to celebrate them at Osborne: check this EH article to read about them.

Grand corridor: detail of a console table. The top is green marble and pietra dura inlaid with a broad band of interlaced circles and leaf and vase motifs, with VA cipher, an egg and dart border and some dots. Designed by Thomas Woodruff (active 1840-60).

Grand corridor: marble statue of Queen Victoria by John Gibson (ca. 1847). Given to Prince Albert by Queen Victoria on his 30th birthday, 26th August 1849. Note the VA cipher on top of the alcove.

Grand corridor: white Carrara marble statue of an Indian girl by Henry Timbrell. Given to Prince Albert by Queen Victoria at Xmas 1849

Grand corridor: detail of a console table. Material: Siena and other marbles, lapis lazuli, malachite. Designed by Thomas Woodruff (active 1840-60).

The council room: it was used mostly for entertaining, including dancing, games of charades and drama. This is where Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated his first telephone to the queen.

The audience room, with its array of original furnishings, was where the ministers of the Privy Council gathered before their meetings with the queen in the council room. In the centre of the room hangs a remarkable chandelier representing arum lilies and convolvulus, Albert's favourite flower.

Grand Corridor: white Carrara marble statue of a winged female figure of Victory by Christian Daniel Rauch. Given to Prince Albert by Queen Victoria on his 32nd birthday, 26 August 1851.

Dining room, note the finely decorated ceiling. It was in this room that Victoria’s body lay in state in 1901, before being taken to her funeral at Windsor. Two paintings on the wall: on the right the family of Crown Prince Frederick William of Prussia and at the back the Royal Family in 1846 (see next photo for details and a close-up).

Dining room: portrait of Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and their family by Enrico Belli. This is a painted copy of a painting by FX Winterhalter, which is currently hanging in the east gallery of Buckingham Palace. After six years of marriage (they married February 1840), Victoria and Albert had already five children (of nine): the future German Empress Victoria (born November 1840), the future King Edward VII (born November 1841), the future Duchess of Hesse and Rhine Alice (born April 1843), the future Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha Alfred (born August 1844) and the future Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein Helena (born May 1846).

Drawing room: decorated in the style of the 1890s with yellow satin curtains, full-length mirrors and a pair of cut-glass chandeliers that were given to Victoria for one of her birthdays. Foreign royalty were often received in this room on formal occasions but the queen also used it to play cards, to sing and play the piano with members of the royal household after dinner.

Detail of the drawing room with the grand piano and associated cabinets. The piano was exhibited in Erard's Paris exhibition of 1849 and featured in the accompanying catalogue, which stated that Prince Albert actually designed the case himself. In which case, he may also have designed the six accompanying cabinets located in the same room. Material: tulipwood casing and porcelain plaques.

Billard room: detail of a table top veneered with malachite and centred by a micro-mosaic roundel of a triumphal arch.

The royal nursery suite on the second floor, above the parents' apartment. The eight small chairs around the small table made me think of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs…

View of the upper terrace and gardens from the nursery suite.

The nursery bedroom, on the second floor of the Pavilion, has been recreated to look as it did in a photograph of 1873. Note the toys, the baby cradle and the small beds on the right hand-side: there were three of them, next to each other.

Painting in the grand staircase of the Pavilion by William Dyce representing "Neptune resigning the Empire of the Seas to Britannia".

Victoria's sitting room with Victoria's (left) and Albert's (right) desks next to each other. Note the three white buttons under the right drawer of Victoria's desk: press one of them and call the servant you need.

Victoria's bedroom with her deathbed. The large commemorative bronze plaque above the bed was designed by her daughter-in-law Alexandra, who became the next queen (she married Edward VII). It is decorated with angels and images of some of the royal residences and demonstrates the respect and affection Victoria's family had for her.

Detail of a Japanese vase displayed in the queen's lift corridor. It was brought to Osborne after Victoria's death by Edward VIII when he was still Prince of Wales in 1922 and was presumably acquired by him during his visit to Japan that year.

In 1876 the government granted Victoria the title Empress of India, a title which she took very seriously. She installed Indian servants within her household and learnt Hindi, although she never visited the country. This is probably one of the reasons why she asked the Austrian painter Rudolf Swoboda to travel to India and paint for her some of her Indian subjects. See the gallery below for individual portraits.

Victoria's love for Indian culture was reflected in the building of a new wing in 1890-92, which had a magnificent dining room on its ground floor known as the Durbar room. Its rich decoration was inspired by the architectural styles of northern India and she had Indian craftsmen brought to England to do the work (the portraits of some of them are hanging in the corridors leading from the Pavilion to the new wing). Designed by Rudyard Kipling’s father, Lockwood Kipling, and master carver Bhai Ram Singh, the room is detailed with intricate Indian-style plaster work and contains many works of art given to Victoria by her Indian subjects. It was the venue for ceremonial dinners for European royalty and the backdrop to Queen Victoria’s favourite theatrical entertainment. You can read this article for a short description of this exceptional room.

Ivory casket displayed in the Durbar room.

Present from the Taluqdars of Oudh for Victoria's Jubilee. Source Wikipedia: <Taluqdar is the hereditary owner of one or more Taluqas (land-tax jurisdictions) or an imperial tax collector with administrative power over a district of several villages in Punjab, Rajasthan, East Bengal (presently Bangladesh), and rest of North India/United Provinces. These kinds of Taluqdars were manorial, and often had both forts and military forces of their own, especially in Oudh, where they were known as Barons. Before the British annexation of the Kingdom of Oudh, the larger Taluqdars of this type in the region had occupied a position which amounted to virtual independence.

A real eye-catcher over the fireplace of the Durbar room and chosen following a suggestion of Princess Louise (6th of the nine children): a stucco peacock (an animal often represented in Indian art).

Model of a house in Jaipur displayed in the Durbar room. It has been presented to King Edward VII, when Prince of Wales, during his tour of India in 1875-76 by the Jaipur School of Art.

The Swiss Cottage, built to imitate a real Alpine building, was the domain of Victoria and Albert’s nine children. Hidden in the woods away from the main house, it was a place where they could play at being adults and learn the skills that Prince Albert believed they would need in their future lives.

The dining room of the family in the Swiss Cottage.

Osborne had of course a private beach where the children learned to swim and where the queen regularly bathed in all modesty: this (restored) beach machine was pulled into the sea, so that she could enter the water without revealing her body.

View across the Solent from the beach at Osborne: Portsmouth and its Spinnaker Tower.

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Rudolf Swoboda's portraits of Indian people

Rudolf Swoboda sailed for India on 7 October 1886. Queen Victoria paid for his passage and gave him £300 to cover his travelling expenses. In return he was to provide her with sketches worth £300. She gave Swoboda very specific instructions: The Sketches Her Majesty wishes to have are of the various types of the different nationalities. They should consist of heads of the same size as those already done for The Queen, and also small full lengths, as well as sketches of landscapes, buildings, and other scenes. Her Majesty does not want any large pictures done at first, but thinks that perhaps you could bring away material for making them should they eventually be wished for.

Most of Swoboda's paintings are exposed in the Durbar corridor which leads to the Durbar room. All names and details copied and pasted from the Royal Collection website.

Dorsaywala Gordenji was a 50-year-old Hindu tailor from Jodhpur and was in the service of the Maharaja of Jodhpur.

Makkan Singh was a 45-year-old man, a Hindu from Kiario, Jodhpur District.

Barikh Khan was a 50-year-old horse dealer in Lahore. He was born in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Hassan Khan, aged 40, was a Hindu trader from Jakardh (Baltistan), Kashmir.

Sirinbai Ardeshir was a 14-year-old Parsi girl from Neemuch in the state of Madhya Pradesh.

Atur Singh, aged 50, was a Jatt Sikh from Lamberdar Sawalsaida village, Ferozpur District.

Sirdi was an 11-year-old Muslim girl from Ferozepur, in the Punjab.

Jani Bir Lal was a 73-year-old Hindu, a Dewan or Vakeel (Government Official or Lawyer) from Agra.

Naslej was a 19-year-old Muslim woman, recently widowed, from Lahore.

Khodir Bakhsh was a Muslim boy, aged 18 at the time of his sitting with the artist.

Mir Abdullah was a Muslim, aged 50 and born near Delhi. He was from the Mirza caste, a schoolmaster and teacher in the vernacular, Hindi.

Babu Shivanand Puri was from Chennai, India, and aged 63 when his portrait was painted. He was a Pujari (temple priest) of Mandar Anant Nag, the temple built by Maharaja Gulab Singh Jamwal (1792-1857), in Islamabad, Pakistan.

Munni was a 16-year-old sweeper, or mehtrani, from Lahore, formerly in the Punjab province of British India, now part of Pakistan.

Kibira Khylan was a 13-year-old Hindu, said to be from Chikul, Himachal Pradesh, northern India.

Samdu Radschba was a 56-year-old Muslim, a boatman from Srinagar, Kashmir.

Addu was a 22-year-old Muslim, a trader from Skardu in Pakistan.

Miran was a four-year-old girl from Srinagar, in the Jammu and Kashmir region, India.

Daolati, aged 30, was the wife of Ramsand, a boatman from Srinagar, in the Jammu and Kashmir region.

Baha-ud-din Khan had a long and very distinguished military career. He had served on the North-West Frontier, in the Indian Rebellion and in the China and Afghan Wars. At the end of his active service, tribute was paid to his ‘straightforwardness, honesty, utter fearlessness and strong personality’. He was appointed Risaldar-Major (Commander) of his regiment in 1884 and was made Aide-de-Camp to the Viceroy in 1895. The had the title of 'Sirdar Bahadur', an Indian military distinction. Here he is depicted in uniform with the badge of the Order of British India. His other badges include: the Jubilee medal; the Indian Order of Merit; the Indian Mutiny; China 1857-60; India General Service 1854-94; Afghanistan 1878-80; and the Kabul to Khandahar Star. He was one of the soldiers in the Indian contingent which came to England for the Diamond Jubilee.

Bahar Shah was a 45-year-old Muslim, a shawl merchant and banker in Srinagar, Kashmir (now Jannu and Kashmir, India).

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