This painting captures the solemn moment after the crowning when the Queen holds the Orb and Sceptre, the people shout "God Save the Queen", and peers and peeresses put on their Coronets. The Queen wrote in her diary "a most beautiful and impressive moment". The artist was advised to show the actual moment of crowning, but the Queen was adamant that she would not be pictured bowing her head to receive the crown. She wanted to be seen as stately and dignified. So the Archbishop of Canterbury, who performed the ceremony, is shown a little way away from her. Which is he – and how can you tell?
The Prime Minister at the time of Victoria’s coronation was Lord Melbourne. She liked and trusted him – he was almost like the father she had lost. Melbourne stands in the painting holding a sword, his eyes on his young Queen, proud and fond. She wrote that he had been a great comfort to her during the ceremony – he was ‘always at her side’. Can you see him in the picture? The other person looking proud and fond is Victoria’s mother, the Duchess of Kent. Can you see her wearing a crown almost as large as her daughter’s? She’s sitting very near to Lord Melbourne.
There are children in the painting. Why do you think they were at the coronation? What are they doing in the picture? Are they boys or girls? There is a group on the right of the painting who don’t look very interested in the crowning. They are more interested in the man with the grey hair and hooked nose at the very edge of the picture. He was the Duke of Wellington, a famous soldier. The boys crowd around him as if they are admiring him, almost daring to touch his coronet and gazing at his medals.