Overall: 51cm (20in) x 56cm (22in)
Gilt bronze. Ormolu heraldic plaque for display on either side of the coachman’s caprisoned box seat, mounted on an ebonised board with the inscription: ‘Armorial Bearings / H.R.H. Princess Mary Duchess of Gloucester / (Daughter of George III Dec’d 1857) / From her Dress Coach / by Hooper & Co London.’
Princess Mary, Duchess of Gloucester and Edinburgh (1776-1857) was the eleventh child and fourth daughter of King George III and his consort Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.
In 1816 she married her first cousin, Prince William Frederick, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh, a grandson of George II. The present armorial displays his arms impaling hers. The duke died in 1834 after which Princess Mary’s arms were displayed on a lozenge reflecting her widowed status. In her last years, her niece Queen Victoria was on the throne as the fourth monarch during Mary's lifetime, after her father and two of her brothers, George IV and William IV. Mary was the longest-lived and last survivor of George III's fifteen children (thirteen of whom lived to adulthood).
The coach builder Hooper & Co. was founded as Adams and Hooper in 1807 and held a royal warrant from 1830, building elegant horse-drawn carriages for William IV, Queen Victoria and Edward VII. They moved into motor bodies at the turn of the 20th century.