Queen Victoria face swap

Where this one comes from

Franz Xaver Winterhalter painted the courts of half of Europe, and the British one kept him busiest: Victoria and Albert ordered dozens of pictures from him across thirty years. This one is dated 1856, when she was in her late thirties and had held the throne for nineteen years. It is in the Royal Collection.

What is in the picture

The crown sits well back on the head, small and pointed, doing almost nothing to hold the hair down. She wears the broad blue sash and star of the Garter over a red robe, with a river of diamonds at the throat. Winterhalter’s job was to make a monarch look like a person and a person look like a monarch in the same picture, and his method was soft edges everywhere except the eyes and the jewellery, which he painted hard. Nineteen years in, she had eight of her nine children and was five years from losing Albert.

When people use it

For the moment you have to be the adult. It is the face for signing off on something you never wanted to be responsible for, and for any caption that means we are not amused without ever typing it.

How your face lands in it

This is a close, front-lit head with nothing crossing it — the crown sits above the hairline, the necklace below the chin — which makes it among the most forgiving templates on the site. Bring a photograph taken straight on and your face simply occupies the space. The rest of the picture does all the signalling: the crown says one thing, the Garter sash says another, and neither needs help from you.

Queen Victoria — Franz Xaver Winterhalter, 1856. Franz Xaver Winterhalter died in 1873, so the painting has been in the public domain across Europe and in the United States for well over a century. Source

Also in: Paintings · Royal portraits · Victorian portraits