Head-and-shoulders marble bust of Queen Victoria, on a round socle, looking half to her right.

She wears a richly patterned wide-necked gown with the ribbon on the Order of the Garter diagonally across the breast from a bow at the left shoulder, the Garter star in high relief on the left breast and the Royal Order of Victoria and Albert on a ribbon round the neck. She also wears pendant earrings and a necklace, and a widow's lace cap over hair tied back in ringlets at the nape of the neck.

The bust is signed: 'J.E. Boehm fecit' and was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1874. It was presented to the Museum in June 1939 by Rear-Admiral Sir Edward Inglefield.

The sculptor, Joseph Edgar Boehm (1834-90), was born in Vienna of Hungarian descent but made a very successful career in England after completing his training. He was particularly well known for his portrait busts and from 1869 crowned an already elevated patronage by gaining that of the sitter, who appointed him her Sculptor in Ordinary (1880) and made him a baronet in 1889, the year before his sudden death.