The green and pink print cotton dress with a ruffled collar, puff sleeves and two-tiered ruffle skirt was owned by nanny Clara Knight. It sold for £2800 at Kerry Taylor Auctions.
Complete with scuff marks from hours of playtime with her sister Princess Margaret, the floral dress belonging to a young princess Elizabeth fetched £2800 (25% buyer’s premium) at the auction on June 11.
Carrying an estimate of £2000-3000 at Kerry Taylor’s Passion for Fashion & The Mr Steven Philip Collection (Part 2) sale, the green and pink print cotton dress with a ruffled collar, puff sleeves and two-tiered ruffle skirt was accompanied by a photograph of the late queen wearing the dress next to a pony.
The royal siblings would often dress in identical frocks but with different colourways – usually Liberty-style dresses such as this with floral designs.
Once it was outgrown by the monarch to-be, however, the dress became under the possession of the late queen’s nanny, Clara Knight (1879-1946), who sent many of the clothes to her nieces in East Sussex at Christmas time. Some of these have later re-emerged at auction, including two matching c.1937 cotton dresses worn by Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret which sold for £9000 in December 2018.
Other items which sold at the Kerry Taylor sale included a c.1910 peeress’s coronation mantle, cape and coronet which was worn at Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1952. It was knocked down at £8500.
A 1780s French gentleman’s embroidered lilac silk suit made £11,000 at the same sale.
