Watercolour of Lake Maggiore

This watercolour of Lake Maggiore and the mountains beyond was painted by Queen Victoria in the course of her first visit to Italy in 1879. She stayed on the eastern shore of the lake in the Villa Clara at Baveno, which belonged to an English civil engineer, Charles Henfrey. In her journal, Queen Victoria described the view from the villa as 'quite fairy-like, sitting & gazing out on to the lovely scenery', and mentions 'sketching & painting, trying to catch the effect of the ever changing lights, on the lovely scenery'