Art Appreciation Lecture Series 2016 Collectors & Collections: classical to contemporary

Prince Albert: Applying Industry to Art

Dr. Molly Duggins

27/28 April 2016

Lecture summary:

Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Consort to , was actively involved in promoting British art, trade and industry. An astute and sympathetic patron, he took a direct interest in the artists and designers who worked for him, visiting their studios and engaging in the creative process on a level unprecedented in the British monarchy. His collecting tastes were eclectic and far-reaching, covering nearly every form of the fine and decorative arts and encompassing all periods within an international scope. President of the Society of Arts, Prince Albert was the driving force behind the of 1851 and its successor, the South Kensington Museum (renamed the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1899), which embodied his desire to “wed high art with mechanical skill” and to convey the principles of good taste through design to the Victorian public.

Slide list:

All images are from The Royal Collection, © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2016, unless otherwise noted.

1. Roger Fenton, The Queen and Prince Albert, Buckingham Palace, 1854, albumen print

2. Franz Xaver Winterhalter, The Royal Family in 1846, 1846, oil on canvas

3. Edwin Landseer, The Sanctuary, 1841, oil on canvas; Prince Albert, Atholl Inkstand, 1844-5, silver, granite, marble, quartz, stag teeth; Carl Haag, Evening at Balmoral, 1853-4, watercolour

4. Frederic Leighton, Cimabue’s Madonna Carried in Procession, 1853-5, oil on canvas

5. John Martin, The Eve of the Deluge, 1840, oil on canvas

6. After John Bell, Eagle Slayer, 1846, cast bronze, Victoria and Albert Museum

7. Ludwig Grüner, The Decorations of the Garden Pavilion in the Grounds of Buckingham Palace, 1845, coloured engraving

8. Johann Michael Wittmer, Raphael’s First Sketch of the Madonna della Sedia, 1853, oil on canvas

9. William Dyce, The Madonna and Child, 1845, oil on canvas

10. Louis Haghe, Buckingham Palace: The Christening Banquet for Prince Leopold, 1853 and The New Ballroom, 1856, both watercolour

11. Lucas Cranach the Elder, Apollo and Diana, ca. 1526, oil on beech panel

12. Duccio and assistants, The Crucifixion and Other Scenes, ca. 1302-08, tempera on panel

13. James Roberts, Osborne House: The Prince’s Dressing Room and Writing Table, 1851, watercolour Proudly sponsored by

14. Henry Wyndham Phillips, The Royal Commissioners for the Exhibition of 1851, 1850, oil on canvas, Victoria and Albert Museum

15. Joseph Paxton, The Great Exhibition Building, 1850, architectural sketch, Victoria and Albert Museum

16. Henry Courtney Selous, The Opening of the Great Exhibition by Queen Victoria on 1 May 1851, 1851-2, oil on canvas, Victoria and Albert Museum

17. J. McNeven, View of the Nave, Great Exhibition, 1851, colour lithograph, Victoria and Albert Museum

18. After Joseph Nash, View of the tented room and ivory carved throne in the Indian section, 1854, colour lithograph, British Library

19. South India (Travancore), Throne and footstool, ca. 1850, ivory

20. André Adolfe Eugène Disdéri, The Grand Corridor, Osborne House, 1867, photograph; After Christian Daniel Rauch, Victory, ca. 1851, bronze

21. After Baron , Richard I, Coeur de Lion, 1853, bronze

22. After Louis Haghe, The Great Exhibition: Moving Machinery and The Medieval Court, 1854, both colour lithographs, British Library

23. Elkington, Mason & Co,Table, 1849, silver-plated and gilded copper alloy, illustrated in Matthew Digby Wyatt, Industrial Arts of the Nineteenth Century, 1851-3, colour lithograph

24. François Briot, 'Temperantia' Dish, ca.1585, pewter with cast reliefs, Victoria and Albert Museum

25. Unknown photographer, Henry Cole, ca. 1858-73, vintage print; William Wyon, Service Medal for the Great Exhibition, 1851, bronze, both Victoria and Albert Museum

26. Charles Armytage, Topographical View (Marlborough House), 1857, watercolour, Victoria and Albert Museum

27. Jean-Louis Hamon, Vase, ca. 1850, painted biscuit porcelain with gilt-metal handles, Victoria and Albert Museum

28. Maker unknown, Perspective Representation of and Serpentine; False Principle no 28, 1853-5, wallpaper, Victoria and Albert Museum

29. J.C. Lanchenick, South Kensington Museum: South End of Iron Building, 1863, watercolour, Victoria and Albert Museum

30. ‘Interior of the South Kensington Museum: Opened to the Public on Wednesday Last’, Illustrated Times, 1857, wood engraving, Victoria and Albert Museum

31. Maw & Co., Albertopolis, ca. 1871-88, earthenware, blue underglaze, Victoria and Albert Museum

32. George Gilbert Scott, Design for the , 1863, watercolour and gouache, Victoria and Albert Museum

33. George Gilbert Scott, The Albert Memorial, 1872-5, bronze, marble, granite, polished stone, enamel,

References:

Jonathan Marsden, Victoria and Albert: Art and Love, London, Royal Collection, 2010.

Martina Droth, Jason Edwards, Michael Hatt, eds., Sculpture Victorious: Art in the Age of Invention, 1837-1901, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2014.

Jeffrey Auerbach and Peter Hoffenberg, eds., Britain, the Empire and the World at the Great Exhibition of 1851, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2013.