THE ROYAL COLLECTION TRUST Annual Report for the year ended 31 March 2010 Company limited by guarantee, registered number 2713536 Registered Charity number 1016972 Scottish Charity number SC 039772 TRUSTEES OF THE ROYAL COLLECTION TRUST Chairman of the Trustees HRH The Prince of Wales, KG, KT, GCB, OM, AK, QSO, ADC ϳ••ϳ Deputy Chairman The Earl Peel, GCVO ϳ••ϳ Trustees Lady Shaw-Stewart Mr Duncan Robinson, CBE, DL Mr Peter Troughton The Rt Hon. Christopher Geidt, CVO, OBE Sir Alan Reid, KCVO ϳ••ϳ Director of the Royal Collection Sir Hugh Roberts, GCVO, FSA (to 30 April 2010) Jonathan Marsden, LVO, FSA (from 1 May 2010) CONTENTS Chairman’s Foreword 5 Report of the Director of the Royal Collection 6 Custodial Control 10 Conservation 12 Pictures 12 Works of Art 12 Royal Library and Print Room 15 Royal Photograph Collection 15 Royal Archives 15 Access and Presentation 16 Buckingham Palace 16 The State Rooms 16 The Queen’s Gallery 17 The Royal Mews 18 Windsor Castle 20 The Drawings Gallery 21 Special Visits and Research Enquiries 21 Palace of Holyroodhouse 22 The Queen’s Gallery 22 Historic Royal Palaces 22 Loans from the Royal Collection 23 Royal Collection Travelling Exhibitions 24 Interpretation 25 Education 25 Publishing 30 Electronic Access 33 Accessions and Acquisitions 34 Trading Activities 36 Financial Overview 38 Summarised Financial Statements 40 Appendices Exhibitions and Loans 43 Royal Collection Exhibitions 43 Loans to External Exhibitions 43 Staff of the Royal Collection 48 External Appointments 48 Staff Training and Development 48 Staff Numbers 49 Staff List 50 HRH The Prince of Wales speaking at the opening of Victoria & Albert: Art & Love at The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, 11 March 2010. Johan Zoffany, The Tribuna of the Uffizi, painted for Queen Charlotte, 1775–9. The picture was included in the exhibition The Conversation Piece: Scenes of Fashionable Life at The Queen’s Galleries in Edinburgh and London. REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR OF THE ROYAL COLLECTION Jonathan Marsden t is a privilege to be able to report on Sir Hugh Roberts’s final year as Director of the Royal Collection, I which, no less than previous years, has been marked by substantial progress towards each of the Trust’s charitable aims. More than two million people visited the occupied palaces and The Queen’s Galleries; seven exhibitions were mounted in London, Edinburgh and Windsor; and nine books were published. This Report contains details of the successful commissioning of the new Collections Management System, numerous conservation projects and educational initiatives, and the further developments in marketing and retail on which everything else depends. 6ANNUAL R EPORT 2010 As in previous years, exhibitions have driven much of the work of the Department. In addition to the busy programmes at The Queen’s Galleries and the Drawings Gallery at Windsor Castle, a total of 154 loans were made to 43 external exhibitions at 51 venues in the UK and nine other countries. A full list is provided on pages 43–7. The figures, especially when added to the total of 1,300 objects included in Royal Collection exhibitions during the year, represent the investment of considerable amounts of time and expertise, whether in the administration of loan agreements, advance visits to new venues, courier trips, conservation, framing, packing or photography. Such activity is at the heart of the Royal Collection’s charitable activities, adding significantly to the accessibility of the Collection, and more often than not providing lasting benefits through conservation or research. A special characteristic of the Royal Collection is that for almost every loan or exhibition at The Queen’s Galleries (except in the cases of miniatures or works on paper), further paintings and works of art are required to act as temporary substitutes. For the year under review, this means that something in the region of 2,000 works have been prepared and relocated as part of the loan process. An assessment of these consequences is an important aspect of the approval of loan requests. Consideration is continually being given to new ideas for showing both the palaces and the Collection in fulfilment of the Trust’s aims. This year, private guided tours of Buckingham Palace have continued during the periods in January and April when HM The Queen is not resident, and garden tours have been introduced during the Summer Opening period and in April, May and June. Provision of some form of catering for the large numbers of visitors to the Summer Opening at Buckingham Palace has been a long-standing objective. It is very satisfactory that for the 2009 season a solution materialised in the form of the Garden Café on the West Terrace. A further, notable investment in the retail business in support of the Royal Collection Trust has been the Middle Ward Shop at Windsor, which was completely refurbished in the early months of 2010 to provide a much more open-plan environment, with additional display space, counters and tills. It is particularly pleasing to report that Windsor Castle and the Palace of Holyroodhouse received Sandford Awards for Heritage Education in 2009. The Royal Collection Education service, which now has a full-time staff of six, has been built up under Sir Hugh’s directorship since the appointment of the first Education Development Manager in 2001. Educational activities of all kinds, whether for schools, families or adults, including the greatly expanded provision of audio tours and guided visits, are now a central part of the Department’s activities at all sites. Photograph©Press Association. Photographer: Edward Staines Sir Hugh’s retirement, after 22 years successively as The Garden Café on the West Terrace, Deputy Surveyor and Surveyor of The Queen’s Works of Art established during the 2009 Summer Opening and Director of the Royal Collection, represents for the of the State Rooms, Buckingham Palace. A NNUAL R EPORT 2010 7 Department a significant loss of accumulated wisdom and expertise, though happily his appointment as Surveyor Emeritus will ensure that the loss is not absolute. Every opportunity will be taken in the coming year to build and develop the skills and knowledge of all staff through qualifications, research, publications and teaching assignments. Curatorial oversight of English and continental furniture, Sir Hugh’s particular area of specialisation, now passes to Rufus Bird, formerly a senior director in the English Furniture department at Christie’s in London, who was appointed Deputy Surveyor of The Queen’s Works of Art in February. Museums, galleries and other cultural organisations are continually exploring ways in which their collections and activities can be more widely enjoyed through the use of new technology, and at the same time the publishing industry is coming to terms with the ‘digital revolution’. The Royal Collection has developed strong teams in the fields of publishing, photographic services, online access and education, and a new senior post has now been created, the Director of Publishing and New Media, to lead all four teams in order to maximise the use of print, film, audio and digital content. Jemima Rellie, who was formerly Head of Digital Programmes at Tate, and more recently a Director of the Getty Conservation Institute in Los Angeles, was appointed to this position in March. Among her early priorities will be a major expansion of the representation of the Collection online. HRH The Prince of Wales with (right) Sir Hugh Roberts and (left) Rufus Bird at the opening of Victoria & Albert: Art & Love. Sir Hugh retired as Director of the Royal Collection on 30 April 2010. Mr Bird joins as Deputy Surveyor of The Queen’s Works of Art on 7 June 2010. 8ANNUAL R EPORT 2010 Alison Campbell, Education Manager, Palace of Holyroodhouse, receiving the Sandford Award for Heritage Education from The Earl of Wessex in a ceremony at Windsor Castle in February 2010. The year ended on a high note with the opening by His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales of the exhibition Victoria & Albert: Art & Love at The Queen’s Gallery in London. The exhibition, which attracted excellent reviews and has proved very popular in its opening weeks, will be reported on more fully in 2010–11. To mark the opening, a 60-minute programme entitled Victoria: A Royal Love Story, presented by Fiona Bruce, was broadcast on BBC One on 14 March and on BBC Two on 27 March. The programme included an interview with The Prince of Wales and sequences filmed in the conservation workshops, the Royal Library and at Osborne House. The first transmission achieved a record audience figure for an arts documentary, with an average of 5.3 million viewers. The Trustees of the Royal Collection Trust met on four occasions during the period of this Report. Two of the Trustees, Mr Duncan Robinson and Mr Peter Troughton, have also served as members of the Strategic Development Committee (SDC), together with the three non-executive directors of Royal Collection Enterprises Limited, Mr Tom Jenkins, Mr Edward Griffiths and Mrs Fiona Sale. The SDC has met three times and continues to provide an excellent forum in which Directors and Trustees can engage together on future plans. The further contributions of Mr Troughton as Chairman of the Audit Committee and of Mr Nigel Turnbull as a member of that Committee are warmly acknowledged. As in previous years, this Report describes the activities of the Royal Collection under six headings, which refer to the six charitable aims listed on the inside front cover. It is under these headings that the Trustees measure the year’s results, with particular reference to the guidelines on public benefit prepared by the Charity Commission and the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator.