Before Going to Bed - Three studies of the Princess Royal and her nurse AN01423115 001 l

''Prince Albert v Strange'' was a court decision made by the

High Court of Chancery High may refer to: Science and technology * Height * High (atmospheric), a high-pressure area * High (computability), a quality of a Turing degree, in computability theory * High (tectonics), in geology an area where relative tectonic uplift ...

in 1849, and began the development of confidence law in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

. The court awarded Prince Albert an

injunction An injunction is a legal and equitable remedy in the form of a special court order that compels a party to do or refrain from specific acts. ("The court of appeals ... has exclusive jurisdiction to enjoin, set aside, suspend (in whole or in p ...

, restraining Strange from publishing a catalogue describing Prince Albert's etchings. Lord Cottenham LC noted that "this case by no means depends solely upon the question of property; for a breach of trust, confidence, or contract, would of itself entitle the plaintiff to an injunction".

Summary

Both Queen Victoria and Prince Albert created a number of etchings in the 1840s as a hobby. The copper plates for these were entrusted to a printer in Windsor called John Brown to create copies that the couple showed to friends or gave away. The plates and the good copies were returned by Brown. However, a number of extra copies had been run off by an employee of Brown's, called Middleton. Middleton sold a set of 63 different prints for the sum of £5 to Jasper Tomsett Judge, a writer who in 1848 had published a book ''Sketches of Her Majesty's Household'', investigating the Queen's finances, expenditures, and patronage. Judge proposed to make a public exhibition of the etchings, and drew up a catalogue for it, 50 copies of which were printed by his publisher, William Strange; with two copies sent to Windsor Castle, for the sight of the Queen and the Prince. Prince Albert filed suit for the surrender of the etchings, for the prohibition of the exhibition, and for prevention of publication of the etchings. His plea was granted.

Extant copies of the etchings

The Royal Collection holds six volumes of etchings by the Queen and the Prince Consort, plus further copies. In all sixty-two plates were made by the Queen, and twenty-five by the Prince. An almost complete set of the prints was given to the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

by King George V in 1926. There is also a volume with 74 of the etchings in the collections of

Harewood House Harewood House ( , ) is a country house in Harewood, West Yorkshire, England. Designed by architects John Carr and Robert Adam, it was built, between 1759 and 1771, for Edwin Lascelles, 1st Baron Harewood, a wealthy West Indian plantation ...

. This volume had been owned by Prince Albert's private secretary George Anson, and was given by a descendant of his to Princess Mary on the occasion of her marriage to the 6th Earl of Harewood in 1922.Collection of etchings by Victoria and Albert go on public display for the first time

, 26 March 2017. A volume of 80 etchings that the Queen presented to Prince Albert's biographer Sir Theodore Martin in 1869 came up for auction in Cirencester in 2016, but failed to make a reserve price of £24,000.Queen Victoria etchings fail to sell at auction
''

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broadc ...

'', 11 May 2016 No copy is known to have survived of Mr Strange's catalogue.

References

{{reflist *(1849) 1 H & Tw 1, 2 De G & SM 293, (1849) 1 Mac & G 25,

849 __NOTOC__ Year 849 ( DCCCXLIX) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Europe * Summer – Battle of Ostia: A Saracen Arab fleet from Sardinia sets sail t ...

EWHC Ch J20,

EngR 255, (1849) 41 ER 1171,

EngR 261, (1849) 47 ER 1302, (1849) 2 De Gex & Sim 652

Summary

Extant copies of the etchings

See also

References

Further reading