<p>Joseph Lee'e enamel copy derives from Franz Xaver Winterhalter’s three-quarter-length oil portrait of the Duchess dating from 1848 (404524; Royal Collection). She is shown wearing a white day dress and a large straw bonnet tied with a broad yellow ribbon. The original shows her standing in a landscape probably intended to represent Boissière near Geneva, where she lived a retired life following her divorce in 1820 from the Grand Duke Constantine of Russia. Her unhappy life had taken a toll on her appearance. By 1841, her niece, Princess Feodora reported to her half-sister, Queen Victoria: 'I went to see Mama and Aunt Julia, who I find very much changed, she looks now an old woman, such a pity, for she was so lovely once' (RA VIC/Y 36/43). Princess Juliane of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, third daughter of Francis Anthony, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld and Augusta of Reuss-Ebersdorff married, in 1796, Grand Duke Constantine of Russia, second son of Emperor Paul I of Russia. She took the name Anna Feodorovna on her marriage. The miniature, which is dated 1849 on the counter-enamel, was given by Queen Victoria to Prince Albert, probably at a date soon after its commission, and was first recorded in 1875 hanging in the Prince Consort's Writing Room at Buckingham Palace. For another enamel copy by Lee after this image, see 421535.
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Joseph Lee (1780-1859) was self-taught as an an enamellist at a late age, but made a successful career as an enamel painter, exhibiting intermittently at the RA and the SBA between 1809 and 1853 from addresses in London. As well as enjoying the patronage of Princess Charlotte of Wales, he also worked as ‘enamel painter’ to Augustus, Duke of Sussex, uncle to Queen Victoria. It may have been the gift of a small enamel of the Duke of Sussex to Queen Victoria that first made her familiar with Lee’s work. She employed his services for producing enamel copies based on oil paintings between 1844 and 1850. He retired from miniature painting in his final years and died, aged seventy-nine, in Gravesend, Kent, on 26 December 1859.
Joseph Lee (1780-1859)
1849
<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.rct.uk/collection/422067">Royal Collection RCIN 422067</a>