Anna Feodorovna, Princess Hohenlohe-Langenburg

Princess Anna Feodorovna, born Juliane of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, was the estranged wife of Grand Duke Constantine of Russia and a member of the Saxe-Coburg family that was becoming Europe’s most prolific royal dynasty. Hayter painted her in 1838, now in Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum. His connections to the Coburg family through Queen Victoria’s marriage to Prince Albert gave him access to this extended royal network. George Hayter was the preeminent British history and portrait painter of the early Victorian era, appointed Principal Painter in Ordinary to Queen Victoria in 1841.

Hayter renders the princess with the refined elegance appropriate to royal portraiture, paying careful attention to jewelry and costume details. The warm, flattering palette softens the sitter’s mature features.