WELBY, Victoria, Lady Welby-Gregory.
WELBY, Victoria, Lady Welby-Gregory. Album of approximately 100 original watercolours. Scotland, Switzerland, Algiers, England, the Arctic and Italy, chiefly 1870s-1900s.
Oblong album. Contemporary half morocco, dark cloth boards, ruled in gilt. Containing approximately 100 original watercolour views, mounted to album leaves, many captioned and dated in pencil. The subjects include Algiers, the Matterhorn, Riffel, Gornergrat, Belalp, Findelen Glacier, Rigi, Andermatt, Engadine, Cademario, Monte Generoso, Lake Como, Magdalena Bay, London, Wells, Harrogate, Devon, and a substantial sequence of Scottish Highland, western coastal and island views, including Ben Nevis, Loch Shiel, Glen Shiel, Loch Coruisk, Loch Duich, Strathpeffer, Glencoe, Ballachulish, Loch Etive, Loch Hourn, Glen Affric, Appin, Oban, Mull and Loch Creran.
A remarkable family-provenance album of original watercolours by Victoria, Lady Welby-Gregory (1837-1912), Queen Victoria’s goddaughter and cousin, former Maid of Honour to the Queen, philosopher of language, author, musician and watercolour artist. Born Victoria Alexandrina Maria Louisa Stuart-Wortley, she was one of the more original women intellectuals of the late Victorian and Edwardian period. Her later reputation rests chiefly on her development of “significs,” her theory of sign, meaning and interpretation, and on her correspondence with many of the leading thinkers of her age, including Charles Sanders Peirce.
The album should be seen in the context of Welby’s lifelong relationship with travel. After the death of her father, she travelled widely with her mother through Europe, the Americas and the Middle East, publishing A Young Traveller’s Journal of a Tour in North and South America during the Year 1850 while still a girl. That early life of movement, observation and recording shaped her education outside the usual formal structures available to women of her class. This album belongs to the same habit of seeing: it is a private visual record of place, weather, distance, light and memory.
The contents are far broader than a regional landscape album. While Scotland forms the largest section, the album ranges across North Africa, the Alps, England, Italy and the Arctic. The two Algerian views are especially desirable, one captioned “Algiers from the Hill” and another “From roof of our house, Algiers,” suggesting a period of residence or extended stay rather than a passing tourist visit. The Swiss and Alpine section is substantial, with views of the Matterhorn, Riffel, Gornergrat, Monte Rosa, Belalp, Andermatt, the Engadine, Cademario and Monte Generoso. The small polar group, including two views captioned Magdalena Bay, adds a further topographical dimension. Lake Como completes the Continental sequence.
The Scottish material, although extensive, is best understood not simply as Highland scenery but as part of a larger late Victorian geography of travel, retreat and cultivated observation. The dated views cluster especially in the 1890s and early 1900s, the period in which Welby was entering her most important intellectual phase. They include atmospheric studies of mountain weather, lochs, passes, islands and western seaboard light: Ben Nevis, Loch Coruisk, Glen Affric, Glencoe, Loch Etive, Loch Hourn, Morven, Mull, Oban and Loch Creran among them.
The watercolours themselves are delicate and accomplished, often small in scale but finely observed, with pale washes, restrained colour, and a notable sensitivity to weather and distance. The Alpine views are particularly attractive, while the Algerian and Arctic subjects give the album a wider topographical interest. We have traced no original artwork by Lady Welby in the auction record or currently available market. This substantial family-provenance album therefore appears to be an exceptional survival: a rare visual record by a figure better known for her writings on language, meaning and signs.
A highly unusual and desirable survival: a substantial album of approximately 100 original watercolours by Victoria, Lady Welby-Gregory, philosopher of meaning, Queen Victoria’s goddaughter and former Maid of Honour, acquired directly from the Welby family and internally attributed to her within the album.
Provenance: Acquired directly from the Welby family by the present owner. The attribution is further corroborated within the album: the reverse / tissue guard associated with the Matterhorn view is inscribed in pencil, “The Matterhorn from the Riffel / by Victoria Lady Welby.”
