Tag Archives: Yale Center for British Art

Enlightened Princesses

Enlightened Princesses: Caroline, Augusta, Charlotte and the Shaping of the Modern World, Kensington Palace, until November 2017

Queen Caroline of Ansbach, Joseph Highmore c.1735,
Royal Collection Trust c Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2017

This fascinating exhibition has come to Kensington Palace from the Yale Center for British Art where it understandably attracted so much interest while there. It considers the part played by three German Protestant princesses at the court of the Hanoverian Kings who ruled 18th century Britain. A legacy that can still be seen in today’s monarchy.

Enlightened Princesses – Installation view
(c) Historic Royal Palaces

The three princesses concerned are Caroline, consort of George II; her daughter-in-law Augusta, who was married to Frederick Prince of Wales and Charlotte (Augusta’s daughter-in-law), consort of George III. In many senses they were the right women in the right place as Britain was embracing the ideas of the Enlightenment and the princesses’ intelligence and curiosity combined with their exalted status allowed them to foster and support the new ideas.

Queen Charlotte, Johann Joseph Zoffany 1771,
Royal Collection Trust c Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2017

Scientists, authors and even musicians such as Handel were all drawn to their drawing rooms. They encouraged medical advances such as inoculation and were involved in the establishment of London’s Foundling Hospital. Plants and wildlife were another interest that all three shared and Kew Gardens is part of that legacy. They also supported British trade and manufacturing.

Enlightened Princesses – Installation view
(c) Historic Royal Palaces

The exhibition succeeds in bringing both their private and public world to life.  The Yale Center for British Art’s director Amy Meyers sums it up: “Caroline, Augusta, and Charlotte had sweeping intellectual, social, cultural, and political interests, which helped to shape the courts in which they lived, and encouraged the era’s greatest philosophers, scientists, artists, and architects to develop important ideas that would guide ensuing generations”.

The Flying Squirrel, Plate T-77, Mark Catesby
c The Royal Board of Trustees of Royal Botanic Gardens Kew

www.hrp.org.uk

Christening robe made for future George IV, ivory silk satin c. 1760
(c) Historic Royal Palaces

Milkmaids in St James’s Park

Benjamin West: Milkmaids in St James’s Park, Spencer House, 27 St James’s Place, London SW1, until 29th January 2017

Benjamin West Milkmaids in St. James's Park, Westminster Abbey Beyond (ca. 1801, oil on panel, Paul Mellon Fund) Courtesy of the Yale Center for British Art

Benjamin West
Milkmaids in St. James’s Park, Westminster Abbey Beyond (ca. 1801, oil on panel, Paul Mellon Fund)
Courtesy of the Yale Center for British Art

I have had the great delight of writing about the fabulous London home of the Spencer family with its remarkable early neo-classical interiors by James ‘Athenian’ Stuart over many years now.

It is hard to believe that it is now twenty-five years since the house was re-opened to the public following the restoration of the fine interiors carried out for RIT Capital Partners PLC, under Lord Rothschild’s chairmanship. The house’s collection is managed by the Rothschild Foundation.

Among the paintings on display in the house are a group of paintings by the American-born artist Benjamin West from the Royal Collection. In the Dining Room are the Death of Wolfe (1771), The Death of Chevalier Bayard (1772) and The Death of Epaminondas (1773) which were commissioned by George III, while upstairs in Lady Spencer’s Room visitors will discover The Family of the King of Armenia before Cyrus (1773) and The Wife of Arminius brought captive to Germanicus (1773).

The Dining Room, Spencer House Courtesy of The Rothschild Foundation

The Dining Room, Spencer House
Courtesy of The Rothschild Foundation

These have been joined by a special loan (to mark the 25th anniversary) from the Yale Center for British Art of West’s Milkmaids in St. James’s Park, Westminster Abbey Beyond (ca. 1801, oil on panel, Paul Mellon Fund). And a very interesting loan it is for this is an unusual subject in West’s oeuvre with its combination of pastoral and urban life.  It depicts the eastern end of nearby St James’s Park where milkmaids had kept cows from the late 17th century onwards and by the time of the painting it had become somewhat fashionable to visit that part of the park to imbibe either milk or a mixture of milk and wine known as syllabub (one of my favourite deserts). Appropriately enough the painting hangs in the Dining Room.

 

Spencer House: Open every Sunday 10am-5pm, £12 (£10 concessions) also for pre-booked and private tours

 

http://www.spencerhouse.co.uk