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Picture of the day

Queen Victoria visits HMS Resolute prior to the ship being granted to her as a gift. Resolute was a British ship abandoned in the Arctic ice in 1854. She was found adrift by American whalers the following year, refurbished, and returned to the British. As a return favour, when the ship was broken up in 1879, some of its wood was made into a desk and gifted to the US President Rutherford B. Hayes. The Resolute desk remains an iconic part of the American White House furniture.Lithograph: George Zobel, after William Simpson; restoration: Adam Cuerden