The Royal Collection Trust
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Annual Report 2009 mk4 pages.qxd:Annual Report 2004/5 corrected 03/07/2009 20:15 Page 1 THE ROYAL COLLECTION TRUST Annual Report for the year ended 31 March 2009 Company limited by guarantee, registered number 2713536 Registered Charity number 1016972 Scottish Charity number SC 039772 Annual Report 2009 mk4 pages.qxd:Annual Report 2004/5 corrected 03/07/2009 20:15 Page 2 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, KCVO, FSA Annual Report 2009 mk4 pages.qxd:Annual Report 2004/5 corrected 03/07/2009 20:15 Page 3 CONTENTS Chairman’s Foreword 5 Report of the Director of the Royal Collection 6 Custodial Control 11 Conservation 12 Pictures 12 Works of Art 13 Royal Library and Print Room 15 Royal Photograph Collection 16 Royal Archives 16 Access and Presentation 17 Buckingham Palace 17 The State Rooms 17 The Queen’s Gallery 19 The Royal Mews 19 Windsor Castle 20 The Drawings Gallery 20 Special Visits and Research Enquiries 20 Palace of Holyroodhouse 21 The Queen’s Gallery 22 Historic Royal Palaces 22 Loans from the Royal Collection 22 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 Combined Loans to External Exhibitions 44 Section Loans to External Exhibitions 45 Staff of the Royal Collection 48 External Appointments 48 Staff Training and Development 48 Staff Numbers 49 Staff List 50 Annual Report 2009 mk4 pages.qxd:Annual Report 2004/5 corrected 03/07/2009 20:15 Page 4 The official sixtieth birthday photograph of HRH The Prince of Wales was taken by Hugo Burnand at Clarence House in February 2008. It shows His Royal Highness in the ceremonial uniform of the Welsh Guards and was included in the exhibition at Windsor to celebrate The Prince’s birthday, shown from May 2008 to February 2009. Annual Report 2009 mk4 pages.qxd:Annual Report 2004/5 corrected 03/07/2009 20:15 Page 5 Annual Report 2009 mk5.qxd:Annual Report 2004/5 corrected 07/07/2009 18:02 Page 6 The special State Banquet display in the Ballroom for the 2008 Summer Opening of Buckingham Palace. REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR OF THE ROYAL COLLECTION Sir Hugh Roberts hroughout a very uncertain year, the worldwide economic recession has inevitably affected most Tareas of tourism. Fortunately, however, the effects of this downturn on the principal activities of the Royal Collection have been relatively limited, and visitor numbers to the residences have remained stable. Numbers at Royal Collection exhibitions in London have been remarkably buoyant, notably for the exhibition of Flemish paintings, Bruegel to Rubens, seen by just under 100,000 visitors during the year. The 2008 Summer Opening of Buckingham Palace exceeded all expectations, attracting more than 390,000 visitors – an average of 6,250 a day and one of the highest attendance figures seen since the first opening of the Palace in 1993. The special display, which received much favourable media coverage, evoked the most spectacular of all State ceremonies at the Palace by recreating a State Banquet in the Ballroom. The dining-table and the buffets on either side of the room, specially lit with fibre optics, were laid with 6ANNUAL R EPORT 2009 Annual Report 2009 mk5.qxd:Annual Report 2004/5 corrected 07/07/2009 18:02 Page 7 magnificent silver gilt from George IV’s Grand Service, intermingled with porcelain and flowers. A video clip and large-scale photographs in an adjacent space showed some of the multitude of activities – from preparing and cooking the food to folding the table-napkins and laying the table – that form part of the complex preparations for a State Banquet. Market research – and the excellent results – showed once again that visitors really value the opportunity to share the grandeur of a great royal State occasion, and they are also intrigued by the behind-the-scenes activities that support such events. This good outcome has enabled another substantial repayment of the bank borrowings incurred during the rebuilding of the two Queen’s Galleries, while also allowing a continued steady flow of investment in the aims and objectives of the Royal Collection Trust. Of these investments, the new Collections Management System, developed in partnership with the National Trust, continued to occupy centre stage on account of its complexity and the extent of the resources devoted to it in the last 12 months. This year has seen the completion of the final stages of user-acceptance testing, the migration of data from the old system to the new, and the first live use. Early indications are promising, and the full extent of the capacity of the new system will be thoroughly gauged during a programme of inventory checks in the year ahead. Reaching this point has required intense and dedicated effort on the part of the Royal Collection’s IT team and the suppliers, Serco. Conservation has, once again, been at the forefront of the Department’s activity. Work in all sections has concentrated heavily on preparing items for exhibition. In the Picture Studio, the programme has included preparation for Van Dyck and Britain at Tate Britain and The Conversation Piece: Scenes of Fashionable Life at The Queen’s Gallery, Palace of Holyroodhouse. In the newly enlarged Marlborough Johan Zoffany, Queen Charlotte with her Children and Brothers, 1772. This charming group portrait records the visit of the Queen’s brothers in 1771 and is one of seven paintings by this artist included in The Conversation Piece: Scenes of Fashionable Life at The Queen’s Gallery, Palace of Holyroodhouse. A NNUAL R EPORT 2009 7 Annual Report 2009 mk5.qxd:Annual Report 2004/5 corrected 07/07/2009 18:02 Page 8 Leonardo da Vinci, Portrait of a Young Woman, c.1485–90 (detail). This delicate metalpoint drawing was one of the highlights of the Royal Collection’s travelling exhibition Ten Drawings by Leonardo da Vinci: An Exhibition to Celebrate the Sixtieth Birthday of HRH The Prince of Wales, which was shown in Truro, Stirling, Aberystwyth and Manchester in 2008–9. Record visitor numbers were registered at each location. By the end of the tour, nearly 116,000 visitors had seen the exhibition. House Workshops, preparation of works of art is well under way for the major forthcoming exhibition Victoria and Albert: Art and Love, which will be shown at The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, in 2010. This will be the first exhibition drawn entirely from the Royal Collection to study in detail the extent and variety of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’s artistic patronage, from their marriage in 1840 until the Prince’s untimely death in 1861. Throughout the year, the exhibition programme in The Queen’s Galleries in London and Edinburgh has provided visitors with much variety: the final months of Amazing Rare Things and Bruegel to Rubens in London, and the two-part showing of The Art of Italy, followed by The Conversation Piece, in Edinburgh. Preparations are well advanced for French Porcelain for English Palaces, which opens in London in May 2009 and coincides with the publication of Sir Geoffrey de Bellaigue’s magnificent three-volume catalogue raisonné of the French porcelain in the Royal Collection. In the Drawings Gallery at Windsor Castle, the special exhibition to mark the sixtieth birthday of The Prince of Wales continued for most of the year and has now been succeeded by a display to mark the 500th anniversary of the accession of Henry VIII. The touring exhibition of ten major drawings by Leonardo da Vinci, also marking The Prince of Wales’s birthday, has completed its final showing at Manchester and has been seen by some 116,000 8ANNUAL R EPORT 2009 Annual Report 2009 mk5.qxd:Annual Report 2004/5 corrected 07/07/2009 18:02 Page 9 visitors at four regional venues. At each gallery, the exhibition has attracted a substantial increase in visitor numbers, making the point that, for certain exhibitions, less is very often more. In addition to the Royal Collection’s own displays, a significant number of loans has been made to exhibitions in the UK and abroad. Highlights have included an important group of furniture, watercolours, porcelain and silver to Brighton Pavilion; French bronzes to France and to two locations in the USA; and paintings and drawings by Canaletto to Italy. In total, 262 works from across the Collection have been lent to 44 venues. A complete list of these loans can be found on pp. 43–7. Access to the Collection has continued to be provided through high-quality exhibition catalogues and catalogues raisonnés. These have included The Conversation Piece: Scenes of Fashionable Life by Sébastien Slodtz, Mars, c.1700. One of 16 French bronzes lent to a major exhibition shown in Paris, New York and Los Angeles. A NNUAL R EPORT 2009 9 Annual Report 2009 mk5.qxd:Annual Report 2004/5 corrected 07/07/2009 18:02 Page 10 Desmond Shawe-Taylor, and Ancient and Modern Gems and Jewels in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen by Dr Kirsten Aschengreen Piacenti and Sir John Boardman. In addition, new material (including both the above catalogues) has been added to the Collection’s electronic gallery (e-Gallery), accessible via the Royal Collection website.