The Magazine Antiques

By Jonathan Marsden  |  

“I was very much amused,” wrote the fourteen-year-old Princess Victoria of Kent, later Queen Victoria, after she returned home in the early hours of June 28, 1833, from a gala performance at the King’s Theatre in London.1 In fact, she was an opera addict. Few of us today can claim, as she could, to have heard Giacomo Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots eighteen times (and per-haps few would wish to), but this is only one example of the future queen’s insatiable appetite for spectacle and high emotional drama. If Victoria’s own adult life and reign were to be considered in operatic terms it would fall readily into two acts. The first, beginning in 1837 with her accession to the throne at the age of eighteen, and continuing with her marriage in 1840 to Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and the steady arrival of their nine children, would consist of rousing choruses, ballroom scenes, and bel canto love duets. The death of her belovedPrince at the age of 42 in December 1861 would bring the first act curtain down with a sudden, cruel finality.  The challenge for the composer and librettist would then be what to make of the next forty years.

Inevitably today, the Queen Victoria who comes first to mind is the tiny, aged, reclusive widow of the 1880s and ‘90s.  When we remember our own grandmothers we generally have in mind an old woman, and barely ever think to imagine the life they led when young.  This is all the more true with Queen Victoria, the Grandmother of Europe.

When we started to prepare the exhibition about Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and the arts which opens at The Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace in London on March 19, we set out to try and forget Act Two; to forget that we knew what came next, and to live with these two people in the excitement of their twenties and thirties.  What we found was remarkable story with few parallels in the history of collecting.

Portraiture is one of the areas in which the Royal Collection is richest, if only in numerical terms, and Queen Victoria and Prince Albert added countless examples.  But what is remarkable is the radical direction in which they took this royal tradition, immediately commissioning life-size ‘Grecian’ marble statues of themselves for Buckingham Palace, and a few years later a huge canvas by Franz Xaver Winterhalter (Fig. 3) in which they appear in evening dress surrounded by gambolling children.  Winterhalter here created something quite new, an image which evokes both the private and public sides of the sovereign’s life.  It is fresh, lively and optimistic, and the onset of Queen Victoria’s reign was all of these, following as it did many decades of rule by elderly Hanoverian kings.  More significantly, Prince Albert was the first male consort of a British sovereign since 1708, and nobody, himself included, had any idea what his role or duties should be.  In Winterhalter’s composition he is slightly more prominent than the Queen, but set a little apart from her and their eldest son, who represent the dynastic line.  Prince Albert rules the family but not the nation.  The picture was immediately placed on display at St James’s Palace, where reportedly 100,000 members of the public saw it.  This was a couple who completely understood the role of art in the business of monarchy.

Inevitably today, the Queen Victoria who comes first to mind is the tiny, aged, reclusive widow of the 1880s and 1890s. When we remember our own grandmothers we generally have in mind an old woman, and barely ever think to imagine the life she led when young. This is all the more true with Victoria, the Grandmother of Europe.

When we started to prepare the exhibition about Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and the arts that opens at the Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace in London on March 19, we set out to try to forget act two—to forget that we knew what came next, and to live with these two people in the excitement of their twenties and thirties. What we found was a remarkable story with few parallels in the history of collecting.

Portraiture is one of the areas in which the Royal Collection is richest, if only in numerical terms, and Victoria and Albert added countless examples. But what is remarkable is the radical direction in which they took this royal tradition, immediately commissioning life-sized “Grecian” marble statues of themselves for Buckingham Palace, and a few years later a huge canvas by Franz Xaver Winterhalter (Fig. 1) in which they appear in evening dress surrounded by gamboling children. Winterhalter created something quite new, an image that evokes both the private and public sides of the sovereign’s life. It is fresh, lively, and optimistic, and the onset of Victoria’s reign was all of these, following as it did many decades of rule by elderly Hanoverian kings. More significantly, Prince Albert was the first male consort of a British sovereign since 1708, and nobody, himself included, had any idea what his role or duties should be. In Winterhalter’s composition he is slightly more prominent than the queen, but set a little apart from her and their eldest son, who represent the dynastic line. Prince Albert rules the family but not the nation. The picture was immediately placed on display at Saint James’s Palace, where reportedly a hundred thousand members of the public saw it. This was a couple who completely understood the role of art in the business of monarchy.

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