{"id":727,"date":"2010-04-02T18:22:20","date_gmt":"2010-04-02T18:22:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp\/2010\/04\/royal_bling.html"},"modified":"2010-04-02T18:22:20","modified_gmt":"2010-04-02T18:22:20","slug":"royal_bling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/2010\/04\/royal_bling.html","title":{"rendered":"Royal Bling"},"content":{"rendered":"

Did you know that you can go to Buckingham Palace without an invitation? Most people don’t realize that The Queen’s Gallery is part of Buck House: you buys your ticket and they lets you in (the price of the ticket includes the use of the excellent loos, as well).  <\/span>And if you’re only going to the gift shop (the best in London – I’m told the dark marmalade is terrific) you don’t even need to buy a ticket.  <\/span>It’s probably the best tourist deal in London, especially until 31 October, as the entire Gallery is until then devoted to a special show called Victoria & Albert: Art & Love<\/i>.<\/p>\n

\n
<\/p>\n
\"The<\/div>\n
The Timur Ruby Necklace, Royal Collection<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

         <\/span>It
\nconcentrates on Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’s shared passion for
\ncollecting, and displays more than 400 assorted items from the Royal
\nCollection, starting from the time of their engagement in 1839 until Albert’s
\ndeath in 1861. Of course it shows Victoria as a passionate, sensual woman, as
\nkeen on sex as on music, art, jewellery, clothes and food – but we knew that
\nfrom reading Lytton Strachey’s splendid biography of her. This exhibition,
\nthough, challenges the view of her as a melancholy old frump during her 40
\nyears as a widow, and shows her instead as fairly open-minded and still able to
\ntake pleasure in art and music.<\/span><\/p>\n

         <\/span>Of
\ncourse the big question is taste – did Victoria and Albert have any? Well, of
\ncourse, this is royal bling. Albert never lost touch with his native land. On
\n24 May 1843 Victoria wrote in her Journal that “My beloved one had the immense
\nkindness of giving me, what I had so long wished for 12 statuettes, copied in
\nsmall from Schwantahler’s gilt statues in the Throne Room at Munich.” Thank
\ngoodness he didn’t go the whole hog and get full-size replicas. As it is you’ll
\nwant to wear dark glasses to shield your eyes from the glitter. Her jewellery
\nis also something else. The Timur Ruby Necklace made by R & S Garrard and
\nSons from about 1853 (and later) has a socking great golf-ball of a pendant
\nruby cabochon (352.5), flanked by two more ( actually spinels) bigger than a
\ngiant’s thumb. The big one was sometimes replaced by the Koh-i-n\u00fbr diamond,
\nwhen she was feeling particularly flash.<\/span><\/p>\n

         <\/span>When
\nit comes to paintings, the organizers say the “the Queen’s tastes were more
\nmainstream than her husband’s.” This is evidences in the Friths, the
\nWinterhalters, some of the Landseers, her own (competent) watercolours, and the
\nhilarious Lord Leighton gargantuan painting of Cimabue’s Madonna Carried in Procession, <\/i>1853-5, <\/i> <\/span>which Prince Albert
\nbought for her on the opening day of the Royal Academy show of 1855.<\/span><\/p>\n

      <\/span>Albert’s own
\ntaste is the revelation of this exhibition. Influenced by his ancestry and by
\nhis student days in Florence and Rome, he actually led the revival of interest
\nin “primitive” German and Italian painting. He bought the first Duccio to enter
\nan English collection – his Triptych<\/i>  <\/span>(1302-8) and he bought the Lucas Cranach
\nthe Elder Apollo and Diana<\/i> (c.1526).
\nThe Fra Angelico Madonna of Humility with
\nAngels <\/i> <\/span>(c.1440-50) he acquired
\nis now attributed to Zanobi Strozzi (1412-1468), but it’s still a lovely piece,
\nand buying it was a coup.<\/span><\/p>\n

On the other
\nhand, when Albert had a kitsch fit he really went for it. It’s worth going to
\nthe show if only to see his Italian Renaissance-style centerpiece made by
\nGarrards.   <\/span>It stands 78.5 cm
\ntall and is almost as wide, it is silver gilt with heraldic devices, and every
\nsort of ornamentation; but perched on it, in a platinum hue, are – and you
\ncan’t believe this when you first see it – four of their pet dogs, most
\nprominently Albert’s “devoted” greyhound bitch, Eos.  <\/span>There is much, much more in this vein, but also some
\nexquisite things – on the same right royal scale, such as the beautiful, enormous
\nIndian Throne (c.1850), which seemed to swallow up the tiny Victoria, when she
\nwas proclaimed Empress of India in 1877 and chose to be photographed sitting on
\nit.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Did you know that you can go to Buckingham Palace without an invitation? Most people don’t realize that The Queen’s Gallery is part of Buck House: you buys your ticket and they lets you in (the price of the ticket includes the use of the excellent loos, as well).  And if you’re only going to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-727","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbv6zV-bJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}