Queen Victoria's Bloomers Sold For £10,000

We reported yesterday on the sale of the contents of Old Battersea House organised by auctioneers Lyon & Turnbull in Edinburgh. The house is owned by the Forbes American publishing dynasty and was home to one of the largest private collections of Victorian art. The contents of the house was valued at up to £4 million and included over 500 paintings, antique furniture and works of art, as well as a large collection of Victorian royal memorabilia.   

The sale prices far exceeded all original estimates: Queen Victoria’s bloomers, originally valued at up to £3,000, sold for £9,735; a pair of her silk stockings, estimated to sell for between £500 and £800, was sold for £5,000. The painting by Sir John Everett Millais entitled For The Squire went for £553,092, The Princess Chained To A Tree by Sir Edward Burne-Jones was sold for £505,000, and the oil painting of Queen Victoria on horseback with her servant John Brown by Charles Burton Barber went for £145,250.

From the archive:

Queen Victoria and Her Palace

Queen Victoria inherited the 'Buckingham House' from her uncle, William IV, in 1837, when she was just eighteen years old. Patricia Wright looks at the chequered origins and troubled early years of London's royal landmark.