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The Story of the Royal Collection

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media: Arts

Art historian Andrew Graham-Dixon explores the history of the Royal Collection.

Andrew Graham-Dixon

Rufus Bird

Martin Clayton

Deborah Clarke

Jo Horton

Judith Winnan

Sebastian Barfield

Stuart Davies

Kate Horvath

J Ruth Stevens

Sam Haines

Sophie Taylor

Anna Kington

The Story of the Royal Collection: Episode Five

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Palaces and Pleasuredomes

Episode Five

BBC World News - The Story of the Royal Collection, Episode Five

Art critic Andrew Graham-Dixon continues his exploration of the Royal Collection.

In the fifth episode Andrew has reached the age of the Romantics - the flamboyant George IV who created so much of the visual look of the modern monarchy.

Art critic Andrew Graham-Dixon continues his exploration of the Royal Collection, the vast array of art and decorative objects owned by the Queen. In the fifth episode Andrew has reached the age of the Romantics - the flamboyant George IV who created so much of the visual look of the modern monarchy, and Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, for whom collecting was an integral part of their happy marriage. As Prince of Wales, George was a famously loose cannon - a spendaholic prince whose debts ballooned in tandem with the royal waistline. But as a collector, Andrew argues, George was one of the great artistic figures of the Romantic age. His tastes were very much formed by the fallout from the French Revolution; as the great French aristocratic collections were broken up, an exodus of great art flooded into London's auction rooms - and George was there to buy them. He assembled a world-class collection of Dutch and Flemish masters, including key works by Rembrandt, Cuyp and de Hooch, as well as some of the greatest examples of French furniture ever produced, which Andrew sees in the state rooms of Buckingham Palace. George IV was a natural showman and Andrew argues that his visit to Edinburgh in 1822 helped pioneer the modern monarchy's use of spectacle. But, like Henry VIII and Charles before him, George had the sense to partner up with an artist of genius - Sir Thomas Lawrence. The result of their collaboration is seen in a series of stirring battlefield portraits that line Windsor Castle's Waterloo Chamber.

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