Overall: 43cm (17in) x 31cm (12.2in)
Provenance: Rose, Lady Henniker Heaton (d.1920) author and daughter of Australian newspaperman Samuel Bennett and wife of Sir John Henniker Heaton 1st Bart, MP.
Full length portrait looking right of the Princess of Wales (later Queen Mary). Signed and dated on the lower image in ink in princess’s hand ‘Victoria Mary / 1906’ by Alice Hughes. Contained in period giltwood presentation frame surmounted by the Prince of Wales’s feathers. Period pasted label verso of inscribed ‘Lady Heaton’.
Alice Hughes (1857-1939) was eldest daughter of the society portrait painter Edward Hughes, and studied photography at the Regent Street Polytechnic. In 1891 she became the ‘first gentlewoman professional photographer’ working from her father’s studio in Fitzrovia at 52 Gower Street. In 1893 she had her big break when the Duchess of Fife and her baby Princess Maud became her first royal clients. Two years later her father received his first royal portrait commission from Princess Mary, later Queen Mary.