Pendant

This pendant by a leading London jeweller was a gift from Queen Victoria to one of her godchildren, Victoria Alexandrina Elizabeth Grey (died 1922), when the latter married Lt. Col. the Hon. Lewis Rayan Dawney, son of William Henry Dawnay, 7th Viscount Downe, on 6 June 1877. She was the daughter of a key figure in Queen Victoria's court, Lt. Gen. the Hon. Charles Grey (1804-70). Grey was an equerry to the queen from 1837-67, and private secretary to Prince Albert from 1849-61. After Albert's death she placed great reliance on him and he became private secretary to her, although not called by that title officially until 1867.

Susan Durant, who modelled the profile of Queen Victoria used for this medallion, was the pupil and mistress of the sculptor Henri Joseph François de Triqueti (1804-74). Their son, Sir Paul Harvey, was a civil servant and the editor, among other works of reference, of The Oxford Companion to English Literature(1932).