FRANCIS JOHN WILLIAMSON (BRITISH, 1833-1920) A MARBLE PORTRAIT OF PRINCESS ALICE OF ALBANY One canted corner inscribed 'F. J. WILLIAMSON, SC., ESHER, 1884'approximately 63cm high, 72cm wide, 42cm deep overall Provenance: Lyon and Turnbull, The Forbes Collection at Old Battersea House, 1st November 2011, Lot 255. Exhibited: Royal Academy, London, 1884, no. 1810, by command of H. M. The Queen. Princess Alice was born on 25 February 1883 at Windsor Castle to Prince Leopold and Princess Helen, the Duke and Duchess of Albany. Her father was the youngest son of Queen Victoria and Albert, Prince Consort. Her younger brother, Prince Charles Edward, would later become the last sovereign Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha upon the death of his great uncle.Princess Alice married her second cousin once-removed, Prince Alexander of Teck, the brother of Queen Mary, who was granted the Earldom of Athlone upon the Royal Family's relinquishing of German titles in 1917.Following the Earl's retirement from military service after the First World War, the couple's London residence was the grace and favour apartments, in Clock House at Kensington Palace; in 1923, they also acquired a country house, Brantridge Park.In her lifetime, Princess Alice carried out many engagements and took part in many of the activities the royal family were involved in. Apart from her normal duties as vicereine of South Africa and then Canada, she attended the coronations of four British monarchs: Edward VII, George V, George VI, and Elizabeth II, as well as the investiture of the Dutch queen Juliana. At her death in 1981, she was the longest-lived British princess of royal blood having lived through six reigns.