Overall: 18.5cm (7.2ins) x 13cm (5.5ins)
Black and white quarter length portrait photograph of Princess Mary wearing in Red Cross uniform. Signed and dated in ink lower right ‘Mary / 1945’. Contained in original easel backed and gilt tooled red Morocco frame by Jarrolds of Knightsbridge.
Mary, Princess Royal and Countess of Harewood (1897-1965) was the third child and only daughter of George V and Queen Mary. Princess Mary began supporting the British Red Cross, during the First World War. She trained and served as a VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse) at Great Ormond Street Hospital, and in 1914 launched the Princess Mary Gift Fund, which sent Christmas tins to every serving member of the British armed forces. In 1926, she was appointed the first Commandant-in-Chief of the British Red Cross VADs. Mary married Viscount Lascelles (later the 6th Earl of Harewood) in 1922. They had two sons, the elder of whom was taken prisoner of war and held as hostage at Colditz Castle, Saxony.