Victoria's Christmas

Illuminated arch Kensington Palace

 Lightbox archway

These beautiful lightboxes were designed and made by a team of Cornish artists and designers for Christmas at Kensington Palace in 2016. All of the illustrations are based on excerpts from the diaries of Queen Victoria, both as a child and an adult. They were stunningly beautiful but fiendishly difficult to photograph well. 

The inspiration for the visual references are lanterns and Victorian silhoutte imagery.

Large lightbox for Christmas at Kensington Palace

Multiple layers

The illustrations in the lightboxes were printed on different layers of perspex with different opacities, both back and front. The effect is a remarkably detailed monochrome image, with even the shadows on the ice exactly where they should be. This one was a full-size window, to give the impression that you're looking out onto an icy scene with people skating on a frozen lake. 

As well as another full-size window and the archway, there were three smaller window lightboxes, as if looking in on Victoria's Christmas, and lanterns throughout the palace.