Queen Victoria on Horseback

A title that announces the horse the record forgot

The subject is stated in three words: a named sovereign, and the fact that she is mounted. That places the work squarely in a category this register already holds — the equestrian portrait of a woman, of which the earliest example catalogued here is dated 1783. The convention is the same as the male version and the animal's job is identical, but the category was always smaller, and the pictures in it tend to show standing rather than activity. Nothing in this record attaches a hunt, a review or a journey to the scene.

What the record holds

The catalogue gives 1840 as the date of creation and the Royal Collection at Buckingham Palace in London as the location — one of five works in this register recorded there. No dimensions are given; the field is empty and this entry leaves it empty. Romanticism is the recorded style and British the nationality attached to the painter. The measured colour families of the image are ochre and yellow.

Where the record contradicts the title

The category list carries portraiture, male portraiture, female portraiture, cultural heritage and mythology — and no animal heading at all. The word Horseback is in the title, and the tagging did not register it. Elsewhere in this catalogue the opposite failure occurs, with an animal heading attached to a picture whose title names no animal. Both are worth flagging rather than quietly repairing.