Victoria, Princess Royal 1842

Franz Xaver Winterhalter painted young Victoria, Princess Royal, holding a posy of flowers. Here, the flowers signify innocence, youth and beauty – tropes used throughout history in depictions of women. Holding flowers is a motif that stretches back to antiquity. We see it in Botticelli’s ‘Primavera’, where Flora, the goddess of spring, scatters blossoms, or even further back to the Minoan frescoes of women gathering saffron. This act of offering or holding flowers is a powerful gesture, laden with layers of meaning from fertility and growth to fleeting beauty. But consider this image with a psychoanalytic eye: the child’s gesture embodies an unconscious, inherited memory of women as symbols of regeneration. The red curtain backdrop heightens the sense of drama and significance; such an intense red elicits a primal, emotional response, drawing us into the psychological weight of the portrait. Thus, the motif progresses, evolving to be reborn time and again.