The last moments of HRH the Prince Consort. Oil painting by Oakley under the pseudonym Le Port, ca. 1861.

Albert Prince Consort was the husband of Queen Victoria. She had ascended the throne in 1837 at the age of only eighteen. Being relatively inexperienced, she relied on her husband's guidance in many affairs of state. In particular he was a powerful champion of the arts and sciences, education and industry. The Great Exhibition, held in London in 1851, was a triumph of his drive and organizing ability. His sudden death on 14 December 1861 was therefore a great shock to the country and of course to the Queen. However, there were two factors which made it even worse. Firstly, the diagnosis was "low fever" or typhoid, a particularly undignified disease involving vomiting, diarrhoea and intestinal haemorrhage. Second, the seriousness of the illness had been suppressed by the Prince's doctors, with the result that people were still praying in church for his recovery after he had died. This picture is one of many memorials of that event. The setting of the painting is a room in Windsor Castle, with the Prince Consort in bed, the Prince of Wales to the left and the Queen in grey on the right. On the far left is the quartet of disgraced physicians. Queen Victoria was horrified by the existence of the picture and considered buying it in order to have it destroyed, but it survived and was bought by Henry S. Wellcome in 1924

A printed key to the painting is in the National Portrait Gallery; a photograph of it is in the Wellcome Library's departmental files. It may not be entirely reliable (e.g. in identifying "Ferguson" (Sir William Fergusson, who was surgeon to the Prince Consort?) as one of the physicians and omitting Sir H. Holland). It identifies the following: Right hand side of Prince [from the Prince Consort's point of view] 1. Prince of Wales [left of bed]. 2. General Bruce [standing to left of the Prince of Wales. 3. Dean of Windsor [standing left of Bruce]. 4. Major du Plat [standing left of Dean of Windsor]. 5. General Bentinck [standing left of du Plat]. 6. Duke of Cambridge [standing left of Bentinck, leaning over foot of bed]. 7. Lord Alfred Paget [standing behind Duke of Cambridge, nearest to door]. 8. Major Teesdale [talking to Paget]. 9. Prince Leiningen [seated left of Teesdale]. 10. Four physicians -- Drs Ferguson, Jenner, Clark and Watson [four men in group in left, each numbered 10]. 11., 12., 13. Princess Leiningen, Princesses Helena and Beatrice on couch [11 and 12 seated on couch, 13 a child standing at right end of couch]. Left hand side of Prince [from the Prince's point of view] 1. Princess Louisa [far right]. 2. Colonel Phipps, The late [standing holding chair]. 3. Prince Arthur [standing in front of Phipps]. 4. Her Majesty [seated]. 5. Princess Alice [seated facing the Queen]

[1861?]

1 painting : oil on canvas ; canvas 123 x 183 cm

Select images of this work were taken by the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum: WT/D/1/20/1/44/99

The artist has not yet been identified with certainty. At the time the picture was painted, he used the pseudonym Le Port. There was a rumour that his real name was Oakley

W. Schupbach, 'The last moments of H.R.H. the Prince Consort', Medical history, 1982, 26: 321-324

Elisabeth Darby and Nicola Smith, The cult of the Prince Consort, New Haven and London 1983, pp. 94-96, 116

Michael Wheeler, Death and the future life in Victorian literature and theology, Cambridge 1990, p. 33 and fig. 2

Christopher Wright et al., British and Irish paintings in public collections, New Haven and London: Yale University Press for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 2006, p. 610

Wellcome Collection 47371i