BUCKINGHAM PALACE
CREATIVE WRITINWRITINGG WORKWORKSHOPSSHOPS THE STATE ROOMS, BUCKINGHBUCKINGHAAAAMM PALACE
TEACHER INFORMATION NOTES
We hope that Buckingham Palace has proved an interesting and inspiring source for creative writing and cross-curricular work for your students. Below we have provided: • Some information about some of the works of art and paintings the school group will have seen on their tour of The State Rooms. It is possible to view digital images of these paintings objects by searching the Royal Collection website and using the RCIN numbers. Go to: o http://www.royalcollection.org.uk/collection • A review of the writing tasks that Bridget and Lynda will have undertaken with the school group. • Some suggestions follow-up activities.
Object/Painting information
Franz Xaver Winterhalter (1805(1805----73)73)
The Royal Family in 1846 1846 (Signed and dated 1846) Oil on canvas 250.5 x 317.3 cm RCIN 405413
In this well-known picture Queen Victoria is skilfully depicted as both sovereign and mother. The scene is one of domestic harmony, peace and happiness, albeit with many allusions to royal status: grandeur in the form of jewels and furniture, tradition (through the Order of the Garter) and the continuation of the royal lineage. The Prince of Wales, wearing a Russian blouse, stands beside his mother but meets the gaze of his father. Prince Alfred is on the left in the skirted outfit typically worn by young boys up to the age of around three. He walks towards his three sisters – Victoria, Princess Royal on the far right, Princess Alice and the infant Princess Helena. Queen Victoria wears an emerald and diamond diadem designed by Prince Albert in 1845 and made by Joseph Kitching at a cost of £1,150. Matching drop earrings and three brooches attached to her bodice complete the parure. Prince Albert wears court dress, consisting of black velvet breeches, a white satin waistcoat and a black single-breasted dress coat cut fashionably tight on the arms. Both wear their ribbon and star of the Garter, and Prince Albert also wears the Garter itself and the badge of the Golden Fleece.
In May 1846 Queen Victoria wrote to the French king, Louis-Philippe, to ask if he would release Winterhalter from his role as court painter in the autumn so that he could paint a large picture of her family for Osborne. Sittings began at Windsor in October 1846 and continued into January of the following year. When finished the picture was considered by the Queen ‘a “chef d’oeuvre”, like a Paul Veronese – such beautiful, brilliant, fresh colouring - & we were enchanted’ (Journal, 18 December, 1846). The Queen later wrote that this was one of her three favourite portraits of the Prince (RA VIC/ MAIN/ Y/ 169/ 69).
The painting was hung in the Dining Room at Osborne. Although intended ultimately for this private setting, it was first exhibited in 1847 in St James’s Palace, where it was seen by 100,000 members of the public. In 1850 it was engraved for public circulation. The throne-like grandeur of the chairs upon which Queen Victoria and Prince Albert sit (made by Morel & Seddon for Windsor Castle in 1828) together with the swathe of red curtain and the landscape background – no doubt intended to suggest the view from Osborne but reminiscent of a theatre backdrop – combine to give the effect of a stage set: a royal family on show to the world. However, some sense of the tension between the royal couple’s official and domestic roles arises from the incongruity of the evening costume they wear to play with their young children. In contrast to all previous royal family portraits, such as those by Van Dyck or Zoffany, the figures seem remarkably unposed, and the children (with the exception of the infant Princess Helena) seem oblivious of the viewer. As a result the painting is almost photographic in its capture of an intimate family moment.
Queen Victoria recorded the admiration expressed by Lord Palmerston, the Duchess of Sutherland, the Cambridge family and Sir Robert and Lady Peel, all of whom saw the picture while it was in progress. However it was not so well received by the press who criticised its ‘coarse handling’ and the ‘sensual and fleshy’ depiction of the royal couple. The Prince’s hands were likened to those of a farmer (Athenaeum, 1847, p.496). The fact that a foreign artist had been chosen for such an important royal commission was also a source of contention (Art Journal, 1850) and even led the critic from the 'Athenaeum' to write that the picture displayed ‘such a want of taste – as make us frankly rejoice that it is not from the hand of an Englishman’ (1847, p. 496). The engraving – by an Englishman, Samuel Cousins (1801-1887) – met with greater critical success (‘the expression in the faces of the Queen and the Prince has far more of the natural benignity belonging to them than the painter had given’, Art Journal, 1850). The print was also admired by Queen Victoria, who wrote: ‘Cousins has just finished the engraving of the Family picture & it is a splendid one’ (Journal, 26 February, 1850).
Franz Xaver Winterhalter (1805(1805----73)73) Queen Victoria (1819(1819----1901)1901)
1859 to 1859 (Signed and dated 1859) Oil on canvas 241.9 x 157.5 cm RCIN 405131
Winterhalter was born in the Black Forest where he was encouraged to draw at school. In 1818 he went to Freiburg to study under Karl Ludwig Schüler and then moved to Munich in 1823, where he attended the Academy and studied under Josef Stieler, a fashionable portrait painter. Winterhalter was first brought to the attention of Queen Victoria by the Queen of the Belgians and subsequently painted numerous portraits at the English court from 1842 till his death.
Queen Victoria had been wanting a new portrait of herself since at least March 1858. She wrote to the Princess Royal, her eldest daughter, before Winterhalter arrived, that the artist was ‘to paint a full length of me in grand costume’. After the portrait was completed, along with a companion painting of Prince Albert (RCIN 405130), she described them as ‘truly magnificent’. The Queen is wearing the Robes of State, the circlet, and the earrings and necklace made by Garrard’s, the jewellers in 1858, the year before this was painted. Her left hand rests on some papers, next to the Imperial State Crown, and in the distance we can see a view of Westminster. The two portraits were regarded as the new official likenesses of the Queen and Prince Albert and many copies were made.
Signed and dated: Fr. Winterhalter /1859. Commissioned by Queen Victoria
Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769(1769----1830)1830)
Prince George of Cumberland (1819(1819----1878),1878), later George V of HanHanover,over, when a boy 1828 to 1828 (before Aug 1828) Oil on canvas 252.7 x 137.8 cm RCIN 405426
Lawrence was the most fashionable and also the greatest portraitist of his generation. He was made Principal Painter to George III in 1792 after Reynolds’s death, and received occasional commissions; however it was only after 1814 that George IV began to employ him in earnest.
The sitter for this portrait was the exact contemporary of Queen Victoria who succeeded to the throne of Hanover, because Salic Law forbade a woman to inherit that title. The two thrones (Britain and Hanover) separated upon the death of William IV in 1837; Queen Victoria inherited the British crown as the offspring of the Edward, Duke of Kent (1767-1820), the eldest son of King George III to have surviving issue; Ernest, Duke of Cumberland (1771-1851) inherited the Hanoverian throne as the most direct male heir (none of his elder brothers having sons or being alive themselves). The sitter for this portrait is Ernest’s son, who succeeded his father in 1851, though his reign was cut short by the Prussian annexation of Hanover in 1866. The sitter was brought up in Germany until the family came to England in 1828, initially staying at Windsor Castle with the sitter's uncle, George IV, who commissioned this portrait in that year. The nine-year-old Prince is here shown wearing a close-fitting blue braided jacket with the star of the Golden Lion of Hesse-Cassel; his right arm is extended and he rests his cap on a bank while holding a whip against his left hip; there is an evocation of Windsor Castle in the background. Painted for George IV
Studio of Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769(1769----1830)1830) George IV (1762(1762----1830)1830) 1822 to 1830 (c. 1822-30)
Oil on canvas 250.8 x 57.5 cm RCIN 404384
This is a version of Lawrence’s most replicated portrait of the Prince Regent, painted in 1818 wearing Garter robes and presented by the sitter to the Mansion House in Dublin (now in the Hugh Lane Gallery). This is one of four versions currently in the Royal Collection (RCIN 405680, 405309, 404933, 404384) all painted after the Coronation in 1820 at which point a crown replaces the plumed hat of the Garter on the table. This one may be the version for which Lawrence was paid 500 guineas during the period 1818-1823; it was first recorded hanging in its present location in the State Dining Room at Buckingham Palace in 1841.
The King rests one hand on a paper lying under the Imperial Crown upon the 'Table des Grands Capitaines'; he wears Garter robes with the collars of the Golden Fleece, Guelphic Order, Bath and Garter. First recorded in the Royal Collection during the reign of Queen Victoria
S & P Erard Grand piano
1856 Gilded, painted and varnished mahogany, satinwood and pine with brass and gilt bronze mounts 95.7 x 142.2 x 243.8 cm RCIN 2426
For Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, the piano was the centre of music-making at home and they installed pianos in the private apartments of all their residences. Together they played arrangements of overtures and symphonies, and accompanied each other in song. This elaborately decorated instrument by Erard was intended as a showpiece for the State Rooms at Buckingham Palace. The gilded case is decorated in the French early eighteenth-century style with cherubs and singeries – comical scenes involving monkeys playing musical instruments and making mischief.
Stamped with the serial number 3985, and twice inside C. MARTIN. Inscribed on the nameboard: ERARD P. ERARD fecit and F. ROCHARD PINXIT.
Text adapted from Victoria & Albert: Art & Love, London, 2010 Supplied to Queen Victoria on 30 April 1856
Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom (1819(1819----61),61), when Prince Albert, consort of Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom (1840-(1840 ---57)57) Centrepiece
1842 to 1843 (hallmarks 1842/3) Silver gilt 78.5 x 71.5 x 71.5 cm; 926 oz (Weight) RCIN 1570
Prince Albert's close interest in design led to first-hand participation on several occasions. This centrepiece was his first collaboration with the firm of Garrards, and it seems that the combination of an Italian Renaissance-style tazza and models of four of the family pets was conceived by the Prince. When the centrepiece was first displayed in 1849 at the Annual Exhibition of British Manufactures, reactions were mixed. Henry Cole, in an editorial in the Journal of Design, felt that the Renaissance-style upper part was too reminiscent of the French School for the exhibition, but admired the fine modelling of the dogs. On the other hand, in the Art Journal Prince Albert is credited with a design showing ‘Italian character of the best class’. The Illustrated London News, extolling the improvements in the standard of British modelling and the skills of Edmund Cotterill, who ran the Garrards design studio, concluded that ‘in no branch of the Fine Arts have the artists of this country made greater progress than in the art of modelling [silver] statuettes … It may indeed be called a national art, and a national manufacture’. Cotterill stood ‘at the head of the class of artists who model for silversmiths and his productions, annually
exhibited at Messrs Garrard, have earned that house a celebrity which no other can equal’. Cotterill was first employed by Prince Albert in 1840 to make a model of his greyhound Eos for which he was paid £10. The model was used again for this centrepiece and appears on several other items of plate in the Royal Collection, including paperweights and inkstands.
Both Prince Albert and Queen Victoria were dog lovers. Although the centrepiece is often described as portraying the Queen's favourite dogs, Eos was in fact the devoted pet of the Prince. The other dogs all belonged to the Queen, and include the terrier Islay, acquired in March 1839: ‘He is a darling little fellow, yellow brindled, rough long hair, very short legs and a large, long, intelligent good face’. The other terrier is Cairnach, of whom the Queen wrote that ‘he had such dear engaging ways’. The fourth dog is a dachshund known as Waldmann, one of several of that name.
All four dogs were portrayed several times for the Queen: in watercolour for the Animal Album from the mid-1840s, and in oils by Landseer and Thomas Musgrove Joy (1812-66). Islay was often depicted in the pose seen on the centrepiece, on his hind legs. Three of the dogs, Eos, Islay and Cairnach, appear in Windsor Castle in Modern Times by Landseer.
Text from Victoria & Albert: Art & Love. Commissioned by Queen Victoria, in 1842, for £1,200.
Mather Byles Brown (1761(1761----1831)1831) George, Prince of Wales (1762(1762----1830),1830), later George IV 1789 (1789?)
Oil on canvas 249.9 x 181.6 cm RCIN 405135
Full-length, standing, facing half to the right, his head turned half to the left, with his right hand on his hip; he is wearing military uniform with the riband and star of the Garter and rests his left hand on a paper.
Creative Writing Workshop:
Writing Tasks 1.1.1. Warm up ––– pairs. Five words as clues to their favourite thing, including descriptive and placing words. ie – gold, heavy, table, animals, Albert. Their partner guesses what it is and discuss other interesting words. Swap. NOT WRITTEN. 2.2.2. Description ––– maid or footman new to the Place writes diary or letter home describing a room. Why have they chosen it – they like it – why? Don’t like it, why - because it’s difficult to clean for instance? 3.3.3. Dialogue ––– 2 guests have been listening to either George, or Victoria maybe with Albert singing. Conversation about what they thought of it. If they’re rude about George’s playing, they’d have to be careful about being heard, so maybe conversation on two levels. Do they like both V and A? Or is one better than the other. What comes across from the two who are playing – what are they playing for that matter? Big discussion here! 4.4.4. Imaginary Choice ––– what would you put on your gold centrepiece? Not just animals – anything, and would there be anything a bit strange like a rat? 5.5.5. Research ––– NOT WRITTEN ––– which of the things you’ve seen would you like to know more about?
Follow-up activities Diary entries: Write a diary entry for one of the following people: • the person who painted the piano – how did he or she decide what colour to paint it, what inspired them to choose the creatures and activities to put on it? • the old butler who has to polish the centrepiece • a young girl, the morning after her first ball • Mr Nash, the day he has received orders to design the Palace
Poetry: Many of the things you have seen in the Palace have been gifts to the Royal Family. Write a poem that celebrates: • Queen Victoria’s or King George’s birthday, perhaps to accompany something you are giving them – think about their characters. What present would they like. • Your favourite ceiling – perhaps from the point of view of a cherub or a sphinx • The Table of the Commanders • The view from the Dining Room.
Description of a different sort: • An estate agent has been asked to sell Buckingham Palace. Write his website blurb. • The Royal Family are a little tired of the view from the dining room and have asked a landscape gardener to suggest some changes. Write his brief outline.
Research: Research is a great spur to creative writing. Some ideas for research: • Queen Victoria and other Kings and Queens have had children living with them in the Palace, but were there others? In George’s time, who swept the chimneys? How old were Victoria’s youngest housemaids? Did visiting people of all classes bring their children to the Palace, just for a peep maybe – people delivering things, people going abroad on behalf the Government, people doing work on the Palace? Nowadays, do royal children have friends to sleep over? • What food would have been on the dining table in Victoria’s time, or George’s? How many cooks did they need? How far is the kitchen from the dining room and how did it get there. How does it get there now? • What music would have been heard in the ballroom? What was Victorian pop music like? What about George – did he like dancing? If so, what music did he like? Who would have played it if there were no electronic keyboards, electric guitars or mixing desks? • How was a portrait painted? Did the King or Queen have to sit for hours while people like Winterhalter painted them? Why did they have so many pictures of themselves painted at all? There were lots of copies made – why was that?