The cousins: Queen Victoria and Victoire, Duchesse de Nemours

Franz Xaver Winterhalter was the painter Europe's royal families passed around, the safe pair of hands for a flattering likeness. This one, from 1852, is unusually intimate for a queen. On the left is Victoria, on the right her first cousin Victoire, the Duchesse de Nemours, and the two of them lean together more like sisters than sitters for a state portrait. Victoire was cousin to Prince Albert as well, a childhood playmate of his, and Victoria called her almost a sister. It is a small canvas, warm and private, and the queen recorded that Albert was greatly pleased with it. Five years later Victoire died at 35, soon after the birth of her fourth child, and Victoria had three copies of this double portrait made so she could keep her cousin's face close.