Was the young Queen Victoria incredibly beautiful or nay?

[MorrisZapp]

Movies and TV suggest she was stunning as a young woman, but all the pictures of her that are widely familiar today are of a plain fizzog.

Was she hot or not?

I think in the paintings I’ve seen she looks a bit plain ok but maybe they didn’t catch her real beauty?

She was quite plain, prone to overeating and drinking and didn’t have particularly good personal hygiene. Lord Melbourne used to try and hint to her to change her clothes and to only at when hungry. I haven’t got the exact references to hand, but that’s the gist of it in ‘The Greedy Queen’ a book published a couple of years ago.

*eat when hungry

Why does it matter?

I don't know but she was really tiny , have seen her wedding dress up close .

Doubt it, she looks like a potato on photos.

nay. come on.
She had no chin.

Right I'm going to read the Greedy Queen book. I think she was very petite in height so she'd have had a bugger keeping her weight down in the face of regal indulgence.

In fact I often wonder how aristos of the past look so lean, with butlers topping them up every two minutes and no manual exertion ever required of them.

I would imagine she had a youthful beauty about her when young. Most of the pictures and paintings show a plain woman who became ugly with grief when she lost her Albert 😔

You can see the difference in paintings and photos that artists definitely used the opportunity to lift her features and shorten her nose.

Plain by modern standards. Was she considered a beauty by her contemporaries? I don't think so.

She was not considered a beauty at the time. Queen elizabeth 2nd was also not considered attractive by her contemporaries

A lot of them were into the huntin', shootin' and so on, weren't they? I imagine a fair bit of that would help keep the weight down, at least for a bit.

She wasn’t beauty, but she was pretty in her youth. She kept her tiny silhouette through nine pregnancies, she only gained weight after Albert’s death. She turned to comfort eating , but also she was in her forties, so metabolism slows down.

She looked remarkably like Princess Beatrice - very petite, fine boned, tiny waist, large, striking eyes, pretty hair.
Here is how she sketched herself as a teenager:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/41/Victoria_sketch_1835.jpg/404px-Victoria_sketch_1835.jpg?20110309121157

Here is a photo when she was in her early 30s - with rather blunt comments:
https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/524387950354633355/

everybody who has seen portraits knows the answer :)

https://britanniacoincompany.com/blog/coinage-portraits-of-queen-victoria/

Nay

She was not stunning by any means! She was extremely plain but is usually cast very flatteringly in films or tv series about her, Jenna Coleman and Emily Blunt come to mind.

Her daughter in law Alexandra of Denmark was very beautiful though, and this comes through even with unflattering Victorian photography.

I read that her mother strictly limited her food when she was a child and teenager, probably mindful that she had great currency as a marriage prospect, so when she could make her own decisions she ate all she could. That was probably in The Greedy Queen thinking about it.

I think it's hard to jusge because in every photo and portrait, no matter her age, she looks absolutely miserable. It might be that a smile changed her face completely.

I know smiling in photos wasn't a thing then, as you had to stay still for so long, but dear god she looks like she's chewing a wasp.

This picture is quite interesting, and she looks quite attractive I think with modern hair and makeup. It's hard to see past her very very unflattering (by modern standards) hair etc in a lot of pictures I think. They also seem to make a big deal of her eyelids in paintings, that aren't quite so droopy in photos. Perhaps it was fashionable. Demure maybe? Dunno.

A lot of them were into the huntin', shootin' and so on, weren't they? I imagine a fair bit of that would help keep the weight down, at least for a bit.

Lordy, no. Carriaged / chauffeured to the hunt. Had beaters to scare the game, staff to load & hand them their guns, then dogs & more staff to fetch the kill. All while standing around eating huge picnics & quaffing wine. No actual stalking etc.

I don't think so and I don't think she was a nice person either. Was horrible to her kids.

I'm sure I saw something about her that her Dr's tried to put her on a really strict diet when she was getting so big it was a concern for her health. Maybe a soup diet? But she ate the soup or whatever as well as her normal food intake, rather than instead of! 😂 That my kind of diet!

You can’t judge people back then by today’s standards.