Object of the Day, Museum Edition: The Queen Victoria Ribbon, 1846

The Victoria & Albert Museum

The world of Royal souvenirs really flourished with the accession of Queen Victoria in 1837. Young, attractive, romantic—the new queen was the perfect subject for a variety of commemorative items and, after her marriage, her handsome prince made her image all the more the sort of thing that Britons would want to display in their homes.

The images of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were added to almost anything. Take, for example, this commemorative woven silk ribbon which was manufactured and sold as a collector's item. The ribbon depicts young Queen Victoria in a pose reminiscent of the Franz Xavier Winterhalter portrait of The Royal Family in 1846. The image, however, isn’t an exact copy. For example, her sash is reversed.

Such ribbon was woven on a jacquard loom which allowed for the weaving of elaborate, figurative designs. When the Victoria & Albert first acquired this ribbon, they believed it to have been made in Coventry. However, there’s no hard evidence to support this other than the fact that Coventry was the main center of silk-ribbon weaving at the time.