Museum of Modern Art
This is Queen Victoria as you have never imagined her – smiling and wearing sunglasses! The startling footage of the British monarch, which has recently been unearthed and restored, shows her during a visit to Ireland in 1900 – one year before she died.
WATCH THE HISTORIC FILM BELOW!
The Queen, who legend has it was often ‘not amused’, appeared a much sunnier character than her portraits and subsequent Hollywood treatments have portrayed her as. Smiling and nodding to the crowd, the monarch also appeared to be an early style leader, apparently sporting shades.
Seen accepting a large arrangement of flowers from two curtsying girls, the Queen is surrounded by a large crowd of appreciative onlookers.
The footage was discovered and restored by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, giving as stunningly clear insight into a historical figure who is now mostly known through third hand accounts in musty old history books.
Bryony Dixon, curator of the British Film Institute, told British newspaper the Telegraph: ‘I nearly fell off my chair because I’d never seen Victoria in close-up before.
‘It is completely unique because you can see the Queen’s face for the first time properly since 1900, since this was shown.. …you can see her expressions, you can see her in movement, rather than just as a stiff portrait or a still photograph.
‘It’s very rare to see her smiling. She doesn’t in any of her portraits, so it humanises her, I think, for the first time.’
The footage was part of a bundle of 68mm nitrate prints and negatives acquired by the Museum of Modern Art, with the rare footage dating back to the very dawn of film technology.
