FeaturesHistory

History's Royal Kates: Katherine of Valois

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17th June 2018
For a woman who founded one of the most famous royal dynasties in British history, she is surpisingly enigmatic. Katherine of Valois was the first Kate to be Queen of England and yet much of the modern imagining of her comes from her fleeting appearance in the works of Shakespeare. But what little we do know seems to indicate that the ‘fair Kate’ of Henry V was every bit as ambitious…
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FeaturesHistory

A Portrait of Princess Alix of Hesse

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14th June 2018
A portrait of the toddler Princess Alix of Hesse by the Austrian painter George Koberwein caught my attention back in 2004. Examining how it came to be painted was a source of great interest to me, not least because the picture that he produced of the baby princess, not quite two years old, is such a charming study. Portraits from such an early period of Princess Alix’s life are rare; she was…
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