This mystery has been hiding in plain sight for over half a century.
As described in the modern, illustrated history of the New Zealand Chalons, E.H Corbould first made a small sketch of Victoria for sizing purposes on 10 May 1854 then submitted a miniature water-colour drawing in 15 May 1854 in order to assist Humphrys in the head engraving for an early Van Diemen’s Land stamp issue. The miniature water-colour was acquired for King George V by Edward D. Bacon, curator of the Royal Philatelic Collection, who reported the purchase in a paper and included a shades-of-gray reproduction of the drawing in a rectangular border with chamfered corners [Bacon33, Plate I between pages 76 and 77, item A]. The text describes it as “A miniature water-colour drawing on white card-board of the head of Queen Victoria in a small oval 19mm. in height painted by Mr. Corbould in May 1854 for the first stamps of Tasmania produced by Messrs. Perkins, Bacon & Co. (Plate IA).” [Bacon33, p76]
Nearly twenty years later, John Wilson published his catalogue of the Red Books of the (British) Royal Philatelic Collection. There a colour reproduction of the Corbould miniature is prominently placed on Plate II in Section I [Wilson52]. The image is separately captioned on an interleave with “May 1854 LEFT – The head of the Queen originally prepared for the stamps of Tasmania (Van Diemen’s Land) issued in 1855, and subsequently used for Bahamas, Grenada, Natal and Queensland. As the Garter was placed upon the wrong shoulder it was omitted by the engraver.” The image itself is surrounded by the same chamfered rectangular border, and the rectangle in turn is sandwiched between the text “Original Sketch for / Colonial Queen’s Head” in a script font. Later, in the section for British Australasia [Wilson52, Section V, p57], the catalogue records “May 1854: Water-colour drawing of the head of Queen Victoria by Edward Henry Corbould for the stamps of Tasmania (see colour plate)”.
That is, the miniature water colour was acquired, preserved, and later reported in the catalogue.
But not so fast, because there is a curious mystery: the two images really do not look very alike!
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| Bacon image (left) and Wilson image (right) of Corbould's May 1854 miniature water-color of the head of Queen Victoria. |
From the figure above, both images were subject to the printing limitations of the day and somewhat indistinct: at high zoom the Bacon image (left) comprises shades of gray with a semi-random “grain”, whereas the Wilson image is colour with a diamond parquet-style “grain”.
Even so, the Queen’s head in the Bacon image seems to be more narrow and angled down and to the right more (i.e. somewhat more towards her right shoulder). As a consequence, the Bacon image seems to show more of the Queen’s left ear than in the Wilson image. The eyes seem much larger with less arch in the Queens’s left eyebrow in the Bacon image. The earring in the Queen’s left ear seems distinctly wider and shorter in the Bacon image than in the Wilson image. The Queen’s eyes are comparatively enlarged in the Bacon image, and comparatively small in the Wilson image.
This author has not seen the two images side-by-side, nor any mention of this discrepancy, in the subsequent literature. Certainly someone viewing one image gets a very different understanding of Corbould’s artwork than someone viewing the other image.
By inspection, [PBR53, Plate VIII, between p112 and p113] reproduces a tightly cropped copy of the Bacon image, where it is labelled “May 1854. Water colour drawing of the head of Queen Victoria by Edward Henry Corbould. (Size of the original 8/10” x 6/10”) (From the Royal Collection)”. Unusual for [PBR53], this copy seems to be a “warts and all”
replication of the Bacon image. Though published in 1953, the effort spanned much longer: Percy de Worms received the Perkins, Bacon & Co. records in 1936, and completed the processing of them by the outbreak of the Second World War (1939), when the work had to be suspended [p.xv-xvi]; and regretfully de Worms died in 1941. John Easton and Arnold Strange, as editors, completed the book. Pages ix-x of the Foreword report “When de Worms first undertook the work he realized that it would be difficult for anybody except the most earnest student to appreciate it without illustrations, and he was in constant touch with Sir Edward Bacon, and later with the writer [Sir John Wilson, who succeeded Bacon in 1938], to ensure that if possible material from the Royal Collection should be available for the plates. His Majesty King George V graciously and gladly assented to the proposal that any proof of artists’ drawings should be photographed for the work, and His Majesty King George VI [King from 1936] also knew of, and approved, the suggestion. De Worms would indeed have been happy had he known how splendidly the Plates have been prepared. … Mr Strange has been responsible for the arrangement and production of the plates.” Thus the exact date when the photograph of the Corbould in [PBR53] was made is uncertain but it seems to be while de Worms was alive (rather than from the subsequent efforts of Mr Strange) and then was most likely pre-war.
Also by inspection, [Dickson2000, p13] reproduces just the Wilson image and chamfered rectangular border, but without the sandwiching script. Dickson captions it “Figure 16: Corbould’s ‘drawing’ (Royal Philatelic Colllection)”. Figure 16 is not explicitly referenced in the text, although its context is established via quotes from [Bacon33].
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What is going on?
For a time this author toyed with the notion that the Royal Collection had acquired – simultaneously or at different times – both the 10 May sketch and the 15 May drawing. Given that Bacon refers to the Corbould drawing and Wilson’s plate refers to an “Original Sketch”, this author speculated that the Bacon image was of the 15 May drawing and the Wilson image was of the 10 May sketch. However, there are too many flaws with this hypothesis. Why weren’t both artworks listed as separate items in [Wilson52, Section V, p57]? Why would Corbould apply a chamfered rectangular border – the same as for the miniature water-colour – to what was just a quick sizing sketch?
Instead, the more likely explanation to the mystery is that almost all of this can be ascribed to the underlying grain of the prints, and the mapping from colour to shades of gray. The print of the Bacon image seems to have introduced a lot of fuzz that smears out each feature. This is seen most acutely in the diadem, the Queen’s left ear and the Queen’s left earring. The inside trim of the garter sash in the Wilson image is missing in the Bacon image, likely because its colour was mapped to a light tone. The side of the Queen’s right check is visible in the Wilson image but merges into the background in the Bacon image, causing the Queen’s face to appear narrower and more angled.
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| Alternating between the Bacon image and the Wilson image (animated gif) Shades-of-gray image: copyright believed expired. Colour image: © Wilson. The use of this image is believed to be allowed because the purpose is research, the work is published, the copy was obtained fairly, there is no competitive motive, and a minimal fraction of the work is reproduced. |
From this we infer that the Wilson image is likely more true-to-life than the Bacon image.
Even so, the eyes and left eyebrow are very different and the top of the Queen’s left earring, immediately below the ear, seems to be thinned. Can these final differences be ascribed to the underlying grain of the prints and the gray mapping too? Or does a complete explanation for the mystery need a second component? For instance might the water-colour have been restored between when the photographs for the Bacon and Wilson images were taken, and the restoration introduced changes in the Queen’s left earring, eyebrow and perhaps the eyes too? Given the presumed expertise of anyone working on this artwork, this explanation seems unlikely (but few things are ever impossible).
And so we are left with an enduring mystery: when one views the artwork in person, what does one see? The Bacon eyes and eyebrows, the Wilson eyes and eyebrows, or something in between? Perhaps one day a high resolution image might be made available to the wider philatelic community, but until then we can only speculate.
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