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Prince Albert and the Royal Collection

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Prince Albert and the Royal Collection 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 Queen Victoria, 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 Great Exhibition 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 Carlo Marochetti, 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 the Crystal Palace 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 Albert Memorial, 1863, watercolour and gouache, Victoria and Albert Museum 33. George Gilbert Scott, The Albert Memorial, 1872-5, bronze, marble, granite, polished stone, enamel, Kensington Gardens 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. .
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