Royal Patrons and Collectors in the Twentieth Century, from King Edward VII to Queen Elizabeth II
A talk by Tim Knox FSA, Director of the Royal Collection
Friday 8th November 2024 at 7.30pm
Quaker Meeting House, High Street, Saffron Walden CB10 1AA
Tickets £6.00 via this link, or on the door
Image: Richard Jack, Queen Mary’s Chinese Chippendale Drawing Room, Buckingham Palace, 1926
Royal Collection Enterprises Limited 2024 | Royal Collection Trust
With its political, social and economic turbulence, two World Wars and the loss of an Empire, the twentieth century has not provided ideal conditions for the growth and development of the British Royal Collection. Indeed, it is something of a miracle that it has survived intact at all!
Tim Knox, Director of the Royal Collection, explores the taste and patronage of successive British monarchs over the last century, from King Edward VII to Queen Elizabeth II.
He starts his survey with King Edward VII, who by his own admission, knew little about art, but a lot about ‘ARRRangement’. During his brief reign he dismantled his mother’s frowsty Victorian legacy under a flurry of white and gold décors. George V collected postage stamps, while his consort, Queen Mary, had an informed passion for fine things, from Fabergé to Chinese jades, with a particular penchant for objects with family connections. Queen Elizabeth, the wife of George VI, assembled a distinguished group of modern pictures, including works by Sickert and Monet, while Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II had understated tastes, preferring racehorses and dogs to art. Yet, during her long reign, Queen Elizabeth founded the Royal Collection Trust, to look after her collections, and shared them with a liberality that rivals any national museum.
Charting the peaks and troughs of Royal patronage during the twentieth century, Tim Knox shows how the Royal Collection has not only survived, but flourished in unexpected ways.
Tim Knox was appointed the Director of the Royal Collection by Queen Elizabeth II in 2018. Previous to that he was successively Director and Marlay Curator of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge and Director of Sir John Soane’s Museum in London.