Latest news with #TheKing'sGallery
Gulf Today
15-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Gulf Today
Elegance of the Edwardians on display at Buckingham Palace
A rare exhibition is exploring the glamorous lives and fashions of two royal couples who reigned over Britain during the Edwardian period as the country tipped ever closer to World War I. "The Edwardians: Age of Elegance", which opened on Friday at the King's Gallery in Buckingham Palace, brings together more than 300 works from the Royal Collection that will be on display until November 23. The centrepiece is the coronation gown Queen Alexandra wore on August 9, 1902, made of silk embroidered with thousands of gold sequins and designed by the French house Morin Blossier. Alexandra, daughter of King Christian IX of Denmark and sister of King George I of Greece, married Edward, then Prince of Wales, on March 10, 1863, in the chapel of Windsor Castle. She was 18 years old. He was 22. Alexandra was to remain the princess of Wales for almost 40 years until Edward succeeded to the throne on the death of his mother, Queen Victoria, in 1901. Museum staff looks at an artwork titled "Queen Alexandra" by British painter Samuel Luke Fildes during a press preview ahead of "The Edwardians: Age of Elegance" exhibition, at The King's Gallery at Buckingham Palace in central London. Under Edward VII began the Edwardian period. The royal couple ushered in a new generation after the austere last years of Victoria's long reign, when she largely withdrew from public life, mourning the death of her beloved husband, Albert. 'Pure drama' For her coronation as the new queen, Alexandra decided against wearing the traditional white or cream robes, which had an ecclesiastical feel. "She wanted that moment to be a moment of pure drama," said curator Kathryn Jones. A museum staff member dusts a throne chair by Carlhian and Baumetz at The King's Gallery at Buckingham Palace in central London. Realising that electric light was to be "used for the first time in Westminster Abbey ... she chooses a gold fabric so that she shimmers with thousands of tiny spangles", Jones told the media. The dress is fragile and has not been on public display for some 30 years. Conservators have spent more than 100 hours preparing it for the exhibition. "It's a powerful example of Edward and Alexandra's attempts to balance tradition and modernity as they stood on the cusp of the 20th century -- a shining moment of glamour before the world was at war," Jones says on the exhibition's website. Edward's gold coronation mantle is also on display, along with two thrones commissioned for the event. Museum staff hold an artwork titled "The Family of Queen Victoria in 1887" by Danish painter Laurits Regner Tuxen during a press preview. Photography was still in its infancy but it allowed thousands of pictures of the new queen to be seen around the world, turning her into fashion icon and symbol of elegance of the times. Alexandra was a keen amateur photographer herself and some of her snapshots taken with a portable Kodak camera are on display. Two massive portraits of the couple greet visitors arriving at the King's Gallery. One room depicts their lavish lifestyle through paintings of opulent receptions, concerts, regattas on the Isle of Wight, lavish costume balls, garden parties and their residences at Marlborough House in London and Sandringham in Norfolk. As collectors, they amassed textiles, artworks, tableware, paintings, furniture, sculptures, plants, and rare books. There is a copy of Oscar Wilde's "Poems" with a rare handwritten note by the author. Edward also discovered a passion for Faberge and ordered several miniature figures of his favourite animals. Museum staff dust a large Chinese vase during a press preview. Photos: Agence France-Presse Visitors can admire paintings and water colours by such artists as Frederic Leighton, Lawrence Alma-Tadema and John Singer Sargent, as well as bronze sculptures by Alfred Gilbert. Several rooms are dedicated to the royal couple's travels across five continents. The exhibition also includes works collected by Alexandra and Edward's son, who became George V and was crowned in June 1911, with his wife Mary. By then, times were changing, and instability and political turmoil roiled Europe and the British Empire. The Age of the Edwardians was fast coming to an end. Agence France-Presse
The Independent
10-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Queen Alexandra's coronation dress to go on show in Buckingham Palace exhibition
Queen Alexandra's gold coronation dress is to go on show at Buckingham Palace for the first time in more than 30 years. The dress will be displayed alongside more than 300 items from the Royal Collection in a new exhibition, The Edwardians: Age of Elegance, in The King's Gallery, the Royal Collection Trust said. The exhibition, which opens on Friday, explores the public and private lives of Alexandra and her husband, Edward VII, as well as George V and Queen Mary. The exhibition's audio guide is narrated by Downton Abbey star Hugh Bonneville. Alexandra, daughter of King Christian IX of Denmark, married Edward, then Prince of Wales, in St George's Chapel, Windsor, on March 10 1863. Her coronation took place on August 9 1902 and the gold coronation gown, designed by Paris-based fashion house Morin Blossier, broke with tradition as coronation dresses of the time were usually plain white or cream, inspired by ecclesiastical robes. The trust described Alexandra as a fashion trailblazer and said she chose a gold dress that would shimmer in the electric lights that had been installed in Westminster Abbey for the first time. The dress was also sewn with thousands of tiny gold spangles. It was also, by her request, the first royal outfit to feature the national emblems of Britain, the rose, thistle and shamrock. This tradition continued on all future coronation dresses including those of Queen Elizabeth II and Queen Camilla. Exhibition curator Kathryn Jones said: 'While it has darkened over time, Alexandra's choice of a shimmering gold fabric would have been incredibly striking at the coronation. There are descriptions in contemporary newspapers of moments in the ceremony where the Queen appears in an extraordinary blaze of golden light, the dress glowing in the new electric lighting. 'It's a powerful example of Edward and Alexandra's attempts to balance tradition and modernity as they stood on the cusp of the 20th century; a shining moment of glamour before the world was at war.' The exhibition also features jewellery worn by Alexandra at the coronation, including a diamond necklace and earrings given by Edward, a Dagmar necklace from the King of Denmark, and a diamond-handled ostrich feather fan. The display also includes personal items from the royal households, early photographs taken by Alexandra on one of the earliest Kodak cameras, Faberge animal sculptures, and objects from royal social events. The Edwardians: Age of Elegance is open to the public at The King's Gallery, Buckingham Palace, from April 11 to November 23.
Yahoo
01-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Queen praises ‘wonderful' large Easter egg installed at Buckingham Palace
The Queen has praised a 'wonderful' large decorated egg installed outside Buckingham Palace for an Easter egg hunt across London. The blue and gold-painted work, titled Green Man Humpty Dumpty, is one of 123 giant decorated eggs hidden along a trail for charity. Designer Alice Shirley said the King has 'been a fan of my work for quite a long time', and was gifted a leopard painting by her for his 70th birthday. On Tuesday afternoon, she showed Camilla the egg installed in front of The King's Gallery. Two Coldstream Guards stood behind them in their red uniform and bearskin hats as a nod to the 'King's men' in the nursery rhyme. Depicting Humpty Dumpty as a green man turns the line 'all the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't put Humpty together again' into a reference about our collective responsibility to help restore the natural world, Ms Shirley said. Camilla and the King commissioned her design for conservation charity Elephant Family's The Big Egg Hunt, where people can win prizes by finding the two-foot pieces across London. Its design was inspired by the monarchs' love of nature and conservation. The Queen said to Ms Shirley 'it's looking wonderful already. It's very lovely', and added 'well thank you very much'. Ms Shirley told Camilla 'it was an unusual phone call, yes' when the Royal Drawing School told her she was up for the job. After Camilla departed, the artist said: 'It's the sort of commission you can't say no to, and I said yes, of course, I'd be delighted.' Camilla had told Ms Shirley the King would be 'excited'. Asked about the conversation, Ms Shirley said to reporters: 'Yes, he's been a fan of my work for quite a long time and I studied at the Royal Drawing School back in 2009. 'He has some of my pieces in his collection. 'He's got a leopard that he was given for his 70th birthday, he's got some of my drawings, because each year the King gets to choose some drawings by each of the alumni who leave the school, so he gets the pick of the favourites.' He also has a gorilla ink drawing, she added. 'He's been a huge support', she said, adding that she had an exhibition in Buckingham Palace with the arts school. Ms Shirley's brief was a Humpty Dumpty egg and she suggested a green man version. 'They said that is perfect, because the coronation, the Royal coronation invitation, had a Green Man on it – not by me, but by another artist', she told reporters. 'And they said thematically that will tie in really beautifully with the idea of spring and regeneration and new life. 'I tried to do it in a very sort of ornate decorative style.' It has a blue face with green and golden eyes and a gold beard. Blue and gold hands stretch around either side and there are leaves and stars painted across the shell. The panel beneath read: 'All the King's horses, and all the King's men, couldn't put the Green Man together again'. At 7am, ahead of Camilla's visit, the artist was outside The King's Gallery carrying out repairs with gold leaf. The egg had been chipped and broken after it was placed outside the Palace on March 27. Ms Shirley said: 'You can put do not touch on something and everyone was touching it.' Camilla's late brother, Mark Shand, founded the Elephant Family which supports wildlife and surrounding communities in Asia, by working in partnership with conservation experts on the ground. On Tuesday afternoon, more than 14,000 people had downloaded The Big Egg Hunt app and £16,430 had been raised. The trail will continue until April 27 when the pieces will be auctioned off.
Telegraph
29-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
When England was at its most elegant
'Here are… people… accustomed to the intimate society of princes, politicians, financiers, wits, beauties, and other makers of history, yet are apparently content with desultory chatter and make-believe occupation throughout the long hours of an idle day.' The passage is from Vita Sackville-West's The Edwardians, a bestseller of post-crash 1930. Set in 1905, the novel drew on the author's aristocratic youth, a procession of diamond-festooned heroines, 'trim waists cutting their hour-glass pattern above the flowing out of the skirt', lost in an array of stupendous dinners and balls, in the wake of which their lovers corridor-creep for assignations in big-house bedrooms. Next month, The King's Gallery at Buckingham Palace will be playing host to The Edwardians: Age of Elegance, an exhibition of more than 300 items which will plunge visitors into the opulence and pleasure-seeking of the years that immediately preceded the Great War. Around half the exhibits will be on display for the first time, a cornucopia of jewels, clothes, paintings, photographs, books, sculpture and ceramics by this brief era's most illustrious players, including John Singer Sargent, Frederic Leighton, Edward Burne-Jones, Carl Fabergé, Oscar Wilde and Edward Elgar. At its heart sit two of our history's most modish royal couples: King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, and their successors, King George V and Queen Mary. Father and son were not obviously alike. Where Edward VII was a 48-inch waisted, oft-plastered hedonist with a notorious 'sex chair' (very much not in the Royal Collection), his heir was uxorious, a devout Anglican, who read the Bible daily, and assumed a quasi-priestly role towards his countrymen. Yet, the cultures they commanded over were recognisably the same: a life of luxurious leisure, made thrilling by innovative technology, global travel, and flourishing art and literature. Among the exhibition's most dazzling portraits, Queen Alexandra painted by François Flameng epitomises the fairy-tale allure of this existence. The Queen, decreed by Vogue to be 'head of fashion throughout the British dominions', sports the riband and star of the Order of the Garter, her Cartier collier résille necklace, and the 105.6 carat Koh-i-nûr diamond as a brooch. Her pearls reach to her lap, the gauze about her shoulders suggesting fairy wings. Edwardian culture has traditionally been regarded as some golden interlude between the sun never setting on the Victorian empire and the seismic shifts of the First World War. However, under the influence of historians such as Alwyn Turner and his Little Englanders, published last year, it is increasingly seen as a moment of unrest, political anxiety, and social change. 'For an age of glamour, there is so much more beneath the surface,' observes Kathryn Jones, curator of the King's Gallery exhibition. 'This was a period of transition, with Britain poised on the brink of the modern age, and Europe edging towards war. Our royal couples lived lavish, sociable, fast-paced lives, embracing new trends and technologies.' Glamour is never not in evidence, whether in Alexandra's gobstopper pearl and diamond Dagmar necklace, or Mary's Louis XVI-style 'Love Trophy' collar. Portraits by society darlings Philip de László and Sargent capture sumptuous style, as tottering knick-knackery evokes the modishly cluttered interiors of the couples' private residences of Marlborough House and Sandringham. Charles Baugniet's After the Ball presents the world's most decorous morning-after image: a beauty of the sort who would come to preside over Edwardian society, still in ball gown and dancing slippers, slumbering on a sofa in thin dawn light. And, yet, the days of this world were numbered. War was brewing, social unrest escalating, whether trade union activism, or suffragettes planting bombs. Meanwhile, the modernisation that saw Alexandra snapping away with her portable Kodak was ushering in social and political change. It is change we see reflected in E M Forster's novels, whether A Room with a View's lower middle-class romantic George Emerson, or Howards End's townhouses demolished for flats, and culture-obsessed clerk Leonard Bast. And here I must declare an s-shaped interest: having been captured aged 20 swanning about in Merchant Ivory's rendition of Howards End, all high collar and piled-up curls. For, even if we know that splendour was by no means the Edwardian era's sole story – rights restricted, the corsetry crippling – we will never fail to swoon over such moneyed magnificence. Indeed, we will be enchanted by sophisticates such as Sackville-West's Lady Roehampton 'oyster satin flowing out at her feet, pearls vanishing into the valley between her breasts, pearls looped round her wrists'. If the Palace gift shop fails to include copies of The Edwardians amid ropes of paste pearls, it will have missed a trick.
The Independent
05-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
King tries his hand at gilding antique dragon ready for palace visitors
The King tried his hand at gilding an antique dragon during a visit to the Royal Collection Trust's Decorative Arts conservation workshop. Charles had a go at applying gold leaf to the ornate 19th century Chinese-inspired artefact which will go back on display to be seen by visitors in Buckingham Palace's East Wing. The King was also shown objects being conserved for the forthcoming exhibition The Edwardians: Age Of Elegance. Charles, a keen artist, was filmed concentrating hard as he practised delicately applying gold leaf to the dragon's tooth under the supervision of gilding conservator Gary Gronnestad, using a flat wide brush. Gilding is the process of applying a thin layer of gold leaf to a multi-layered carved and prepared surface. This dragon is one of a pair that sit on top of a decorative pelmet above a window in the East Wing of the Palace. Their gilding had worn away over the centuries and once their conservation is complete, they will be returned to the Centre Room Lobby, where they can be seen by visitors during tours of the East Wing. They were originally made for the Royal Pavilion in Brighton and reflected the extravagant George IV's love of Asian art and design. When the Pavilion was sold in 1850, its contents were transferred to the Palace's East Wing and inspired the Chinese-themed decor of its principal rooms. Charles also met senior metalwork conservator Sophy Wills and art handler David East on the visit in London last Tuesday, and was shown objects being prepared for the exhibition The Edwardians: Age Of Elegance display which begins at The King's Gallery at Buckingham Palace in April. Among the pieces were an elaborate table mirror inscribed 'To age and youth I tell the truth', a silver and enamel bowl given to Queen Alexandra by her Russian relations, and a Frederic Leighton sculpture of an athlete wrestling with a python. The King was seen pointing at a large gilded screen which adorned the private rooms of his ancestors King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra at Sandringham House and features black and white photographs of their glamorous social circle. The workshop's experts use a combination of centuries-old techniques and state-of-the-art technologies to conserve furniture, ceramics, sculpture, giltwood and metalwork from the Royal Collection. Charles is patron of the Royal Collection Trust, the charity caring for one of the world's great art collections which is held in trust by the King for his successors and the nation. The Edwardians: Age Of Elegance will delve into the family lives, personal collections, global travels and glittering social circles of two of British history's most fashionable royal couples – Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, and King George V and Queen Mary. It will bring together more than 300 items including jewellery, fashion, paintings and books – the majority never seen before – by famous figures such as Cartier, Oscar Wilde, Sir Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris. The Edwardians: Age Of Elegance is at The King's Gallery, Buckingham Palace, from April 11 to November 23 2025.
