Long-Lost Film Footage of Queen Victoria on Her Final Trip to Ireland Has Been Rediscovered

Queen Victoria's reign predated televised royal weddings and press conferences, but the British monarch did live long enough to see the advent of motion pictures. According to The Telegraph, the clip below, filmed one year before her death, is thought to be among the last footage ever recorded of the queen.

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City rediscovered the film in its archive of 68mm nitrate prints and negatives from early cinema history. The footage, captured during Queen Victoria's final trip to Ireland in 1900, shows a different side of the monarch than what she shared in her stoic portraits. She's wearing sunglasses and holding a parasol to protect herself from the sun, and when admirers come up to her, she greets them with a rare smile.

"In a moving image you get so much more, even something as brief as this, of the personality, of the presence of this woman," film curator Dave Kehr said in a video from MoMA.

Queen Victoria died in 1901, concluding what had been the longest reign of any British monarch at that point in history. Her great-great-granddaughter Queen Elizabeth II has since surpassed that achievement.

[h/t The Telegraph]