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.