0:00:08 > 0:00:11Have you ever wondered how you'd impress a king?
0:00:15 > 0:00:16If you're at Buckingham Palace,
0:00:16 > 0:00:19and the King of Spain is coming to dinner,
0:00:19 > 0:00:22the first thing you do is get out your best tableware.
0:00:27 > 0:00:30In particular, you polish up the Grand Service,
0:00:30 > 0:00:34one of the greatest treasures of the Royal Collection
0:00:34 > 0:00:37and, then, you let it do its work.
0:00:39 > 0:00:41The Grand Service,
0:00:41 > 0:00:474,000 pieces, silver-gilt, 25 years in the making -
0:00:47 > 0:00:50far more than table ornament.
0:00:50 > 0:00:54Many of these pieces could really be described as sculpture.
0:00:54 > 0:00:57What an astonishing thing!
0:00:57 > 0:00:59It's a national monument.
0:01:00 > 0:01:04Look closer and there's marvel in every detail.
0:01:04 > 0:01:06Clam-shaped tureens,
0:01:06 > 0:01:09candelabra with piping forms.
0:01:09 > 0:01:13It all reflects the personality of the man who commissioned it -
0:01:13 > 0:01:18George IV, a king for whom too much was never enough
0:01:18 > 0:01:22and who was responsible for so much of the trappings of the modern
0:01:22 > 0:01:28monarchy. Before him, royal ceremony was polite theatre.
0:01:28 > 0:01:30After him, it was opera.
0:01:33 > 0:01:35I'm exploring the Royal Collection,
0:01:35 > 0:01:38that extraordinary accumulation
0:01:38 > 0:01:40of art and objects owned by the monarchy
0:01:40 > 0:01:44and I've reached the late 18th and early 19th centuries
0:01:44 > 0:01:48and the most romantic royal collectors in history.
0:01:48 > 0:01:53There's George IV but also the royal couple who closely followed him -
0:01:53 > 0:01:55Queen Victoria and Prince Albert,
0:01:55 > 0:01:59for whom art served almost as a marital aid.
0:01:59 > 0:02:06This is a fantastically accomplished piece of high Victorian soft porn.
0:02:08 > 0:02:11Through their collections, we see them as lovers, rulers,
0:02:11 > 0:02:16diplomats and - sometimes - flawed individuals.
0:02:16 > 0:02:18But they purchased and commissioned
0:02:18 > 0:02:22some of the greatest works of art of all time.
0:02:22 > 0:02:24Between them, George IV,
0:02:24 > 0:02:29Queen Victoria and Albert turned the first half of the 19th century into
0:02:29 > 0:02:33the greatest age of royal collecting since the time of Charles I
0:02:33 > 0:02:36and, unlike Charles's collection,
0:02:36 > 0:02:40theirs have remained largely intact into the present
0:02:40 > 0:02:46and, in fact, when the monarchy today wants to put on a show,
0:02:46 > 0:02:53it's THEIR stuff that's brought out, polished and set on the table.
0:03:19 > 0:03:22"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
0:03:22 > 0:03:25"A stately pleasure dome decree
0:03:25 > 0:03:27"Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
0:03:27 > 0:03:30"Through caverns measureless to man
0:03:30 > 0:03:32"Down to a sunless sea."
0:03:37 > 0:03:39Coleridge, in his opium dreams,
0:03:39 > 0:03:44merely wrote about the great palace of an Oriental potentate.
0:03:44 > 0:03:47But George IV, whose name I would add to any roll call
0:03:47 > 0:03:51of great romantics, went one better - he built his own.
0:03:57 > 0:03:59The Royal Pavilion in Brighton -
0:03:59 > 0:04:01a self-portrait in stone of a man
0:04:01 > 0:04:05who lived his whole life as if it were a work of art.
0:04:06 > 0:04:08A pleasure dome, indeed.
0:04:12 > 0:04:15So, welcome to the house that George built.
0:04:15 > 0:04:18Welcome to the house of fun!
0:04:21 > 0:04:23Everything in here is pure theatre.
0:04:23 > 0:04:27Look at this wonderful, Chinese-style chandelier
0:04:27 > 0:04:31designed by George's interior decorators, the Craces.
0:04:36 > 0:04:40And these rather wonderful Qing dynasty figurines,
0:04:40 > 0:04:45they give you a little hint as to George's mischievous sense of fun.
0:04:46 > 0:04:50They nod at you, and it's said that George used to like to do that
0:04:50 > 0:04:53to all of these figurines just before guests arrived,
0:04:53 > 0:04:56so that when they came in to this long gallery,
0:04:56 > 0:04:59they'd do a double-take and think, "Did that sculpture just move?
0:04:59 > 0:05:02"Is it alive? Who knows?"
0:05:04 > 0:05:06These figures, like many other objects here,
0:05:06 > 0:05:07are owned by the Queen
0:05:07 > 0:05:11and are on long term loan from the Royal Collection.
0:05:16 > 0:05:21The walls have been papered so that they resemble a garden -
0:05:21 > 0:05:25what looks like marble is actually just paint...
0:05:26 > 0:05:31..and, if you continue on to this rather wonderful staircase...
0:05:32 > 0:05:38..this looks like bamboo but, actually, it's made of wrought iron,
0:05:38 > 0:05:44whereas this, the handrail, is mahogany carved to look like bamboo.
0:05:44 > 0:05:46How perverse is that?
0:05:47 > 0:05:51But all of that, the long gallery, is really
0:05:51 > 0:05:52an avenue of anticipation,
0:05:52 > 0:05:57a build-up, a build-up to the great climax,
0:05:57 > 0:05:58the coup de theatre,
0:05:58 > 0:06:03the piece of resistance, which is the banqueting room.
0:06:07 > 0:06:09The richest, most luxuriously decorated space
0:06:09 > 0:06:13created in all of 19th-century England.
0:06:17 > 0:06:19It's bewildering, breathtaking.
0:06:23 > 0:06:26The designer was a man called Robert Jones.
0:06:26 > 0:06:28If only he were alive today,
0:06:28 > 0:06:32just imagine how Elton John's house would look.
0:06:32 > 0:06:34Fantastic!
0:06:34 > 0:06:41That is the largest, most splendid and extraordinary chandelier.
0:06:41 > 0:06:49It's held in place by this astonishing Jabberwock of a dragon.
0:06:52 > 0:06:57The pavilion began as a spare and trim neoclassical building but it
0:06:57 > 0:07:00expanded in tandem with the royal waistline,
0:07:00 > 0:07:04becoming more outlandish as George put ever more distance
0:07:04 > 0:07:08between himself and the ordered, 18th-century world of his youth,
0:07:08 > 0:07:11dominated by his father, George III.
0:07:12 > 0:07:17Think of George III, collector of clocks,
0:07:17 > 0:07:23a man of the Enlightenment, obsessed with order, decorum, rules,
0:07:23 > 0:07:26punctuality. Well!
0:07:26 > 0:07:31George IV just says no to all of that
0:07:31 > 0:07:33and I think that's what this building symbolises
0:07:33 > 0:07:37more than anything else. It's a great act of rebellion
0:07:37 > 0:07:40against everything that his father stood for.
0:07:40 > 0:07:44In here, underneath that glittering dome,
0:07:44 > 0:07:50in this fantasy world, he can enjoy his latest fling,
0:07:50 > 0:07:57open ten or 20 bottles of very good Bordeaux and time would stand still.
0:07:57 > 0:07:59He would be free.
0:08:04 > 0:08:06Freedom came at a price.
0:08:06 > 0:08:10George's excessive consumption wasn't nearly matched by his income.
0:08:11 > 0:08:14Parliament was constantly bailing him out,
0:08:14 > 0:08:18even forcing him to marry in exchange for writing off hundreds of
0:08:18 > 0:08:19thousands of pounds of debt.
0:08:21 > 0:08:24George has been remembered as extravagant and profligate,
0:08:24 > 0:08:27a thoroughly rotten apple in the barrel of monarchy
0:08:27 > 0:08:28but is that fair?
0:08:28 > 0:08:33Yes, he spent fortunes and, no, he didn't always pay his bills.
0:08:33 > 0:08:38But the truth is that if you added up the value of all of the objects
0:08:38 > 0:08:41that he bought and brought into the Royal Collection,
0:08:41 > 0:08:48you'd find that for every £1,000 he spent, you'd have £10 million
0:08:48 > 0:08:50of value in modern money.
0:08:56 > 0:08:58As Prince of Wales,
0:08:58 > 0:09:01George commissioned a series of paintings from George Stubbs.
0:09:03 > 0:09:07You could pick up a Stubbs for around 60 quid in the 1790s.
0:09:07 > 0:09:11They're worth up to £20 million these days
0:09:11 > 0:09:14and George bought over a dozen.
0:09:14 > 0:09:18And these are two of the real pinnacles.
0:09:18 > 0:09:19I love this one.
0:09:19 > 0:09:25It's a sort of picture of George IV who isn't there.
0:09:25 > 0:09:29What it shows us is the preparations being made
0:09:29 > 0:09:34for him to take a trip in his carriage.
0:09:34 > 0:09:38This particular type of carriage is known as a phaeton.
0:09:38 > 0:09:40Here's his head coachman.
0:09:40 > 0:09:43The horses have been groomed and he's calming one of them,
0:09:43 > 0:09:45holding him by the bridle.
0:09:45 > 0:09:48He's a man called Samuel Thomas -
0:09:48 > 0:09:54stout, with his red face and an expression of infinite patience.
0:09:54 > 0:09:57He's a man used to waiting for his master.
0:09:57 > 0:10:00Down here, we've got George's rather mischievous dog, Fino.
0:10:00 > 0:10:03Trust George to have a dog named after a type of sherry -
0:10:03 > 0:10:09trying his best, as he rears up, trying to startle the second horse,
0:10:09 > 0:10:12who, for the moment, isn't playing along.
0:10:12 > 0:10:14It's a wonderful picture.
0:10:14 > 0:10:17In the other painting, we see George himself,
0:10:17 > 0:10:19out riding, in London,
0:10:19 > 0:10:21by the side of the Serpentine.
0:10:21 > 0:10:24He's in Hyde Park. He's multitasking.
0:10:24 > 0:10:26He's giving his horse some exercise
0:10:26 > 0:10:29while walking his dogs at the same time.
0:10:29 > 0:10:32What's most interesting is his costume.
0:10:32 > 0:10:35The buff trouser and navy blue frock coat
0:10:35 > 0:10:37were the uniform of the radical
0:10:37 > 0:10:40Whig opposition, champions of liberty,
0:10:40 > 0:10:43adversaries of the Government of King George III.
0:10:44 > 0:10:49This was George's way of saying that "I'm sympathetic to the Whig cause,
0:10:49 > 0:10:53"and I'm not entirely unsympathetic to the ideas of that group
0:10:53 > 0:10:57"over the Channel, the French revolutionaries."
0:10:57 > 0:10:59If you look at the date of the picture down here,
0:10:59 > 0:11:02you can see it was painted in 1791,
0:11:02 > 0:11:05so this is before Madame Guillotine has come on the scene.
0:11:05 > 0:11:08It's still safe, if you like,
0:11:08 > 0:11:12to feel some sympathy for the revolutionary cause.
0:11:12 > 0:11:15It's definitely a picture that shows how much like Blake,
0:11:15 > 0:11:17like Wordsworth,
0:11:17 > 0:11:22he's thinking about himself, as someone living in a new age.
0:11:24 > 0:11:29The execution of the French king two years later put an end to George's
0:11:29 > 0:11:31flirtations with radicalism.
0:11:32 > 0:11:37But France, or specifically French aristocratic and royal taste,
0:11:37 > 0:11:40would be a constant throughout his life,
0:11:40 > 0:11:44and on display at his main residence as Prince of Wales -
0:11:44 > 0:11:45Carlton House.
0:11:47 > 0:11:50Nothing of Carlton House remains at the bottom of Regent Street
0:11:50 > 0:11:54where it once stood but you can witness its splendour
0:11:54 > 0:11:57in a series of watercolours in the Royal Collection.
0:12:01 > 0:12:06Visitors pass through an entrance at Pall Mall and then into principal
0:12:06 > 0:12:11rooms that included the rose satin drawing room hung with silk,
0:12:11 > 0:12:15and decorated with portraits of Rubens and van Dyck,
0:12:15 > 0:12:20the vast crimson drawing room with a carpet of light blue velvet
0:12:20 > 0:12:22and a magnificent throne room.
0:12:24 > 0:12:27Carlton House was torn down in George's lifetime,
0:12:27 > 0:12:30so what happened to the things that were in it?
0:12:30 > 0:12:32Have a guess.
0:12:41 > 0:12:45And if you really want to see George IV's collection
0:12:45 > 0:12:49at its very best, you have to come to this royal residence
0:12:49 > 0:12:52tucked away in the heart of London -
0:12:52 > 0:12:53Buckingham Palace.
0:12:55 > 0:12:58This was another of George's building projects.
0:12:58 > 0:13:03The state rooms are decorated with many of his sensuous furnishings.
0:13:03 > 0:13:06It's so camp here, so OTT,
0:13:06 > 0:13:08so French,
0:13:08 > 0:13:10that you have to pinch yourself to remember
0:13:10 > 0:13:12that you're at the centre of the British state.
0:13:13 > 0:13:16Royal Collection Trust's Rufus Bird
0:13:16 > 0:13:18is responsible for the Palace furniture.
0:13:21 > 0:13:25So, this is a sofa or a canape, as it's called in French,
0:13:25 > 0:13:31made in the late 18th century in France and is one of three sets.
0:13:31 > 0:13:35One set was supplied to Louis XVI, another to
0:13:35 > 0:13:37Marie Antoinette and this, the third set,
0:13:37 > 0:13:40supplied to George, Prince of Wales.
0:13:40 > 0:13:43The French furniture maker must be very pleased
0:13:43 > 0:13:45in the immediate post-Revolutionary period, I mean,
0:13:45 > 0:13:48suddenly to get a commission from George must help a bit.
0:13:48 > 0:13:50- Yes.- Who was his principal furniture dealer?
0:13:50 > 0:13:53So, he used this guy called Dominique Daguerre,
0:13:53 > 0:13:55who is a very important person
0:13:55 > 0:13:59for creating some of these assemblages in Carlton House
0:13:59 > 0:14:01and he is a marchand-mercier,
0:14:01 > 0:14:05a sort of person who could bring together craftsmen
0:14:05 > 0:14:07and create a work of art.
0:14:07 > 0:14:10Were any of these things brought by him, or all of these things?
0:14:10 > 0:14:11Yeah, pretty much everything, actually.
0:14:11 > 0:14:14I want to show you something here. If you have a look underneath here,
0:14:14 > 0:14:19I'll move this out the way and if we look underneath, you can see...
0:14:19 > 0:14:23- Oh, there's a sort of sticker. - Yes, there's a label. It says,
0:14:23 > 0:14:26"Monsieur Daguerre. Canape pour le sallon."
0:14:26 > 0:14:27So, there we have.
0:14:27 > 0:14:30- For the removal man. So he knows where to put it.- Exactly.
0:14:30 > 0:14:33- He knows exactly where to put it. - In Carlton House.- In Carlton House.
0:14:33 > 0:14:37Daguerre received £14,500 in a single year
0:14:37 > 0:14:39for fitting out Carlton House,
0:14:39 > 0:14:42supplying items such as this cabinet.
0:14:42 > 0:14:45Wow! It's just fantastic.
0:14:45 > 0:14:47The panels are pietra dura,
0:14:47 > 0:14:50so that's the Italian inlaid stone technique
0:14:50 > 0:14:54which you can almost not believe when you look at that tulip.
0:14:54 > 0:14:56And the other one I love is this one.
0:14:56 > 0:14:59I mean, it's just... I've never seen anything like it!
0:14:59 > 0:15:03This feels like a cornucopia in the form of a piece of furniture.
0:15:03 > 0:15:06- It sort of spills out into the room, almost.- It does, yeah.
0:15:06 > 0:15:09This three-dimensionality here of these plaques is incredible.
0:15:09 > 0:15:12When it was made, around 1787,
0:15:12 > 0:15:16this belonged to a famous opera singer called Madame La Guerre
0:15:16 > 0:15:20who died very young of a very exciting life.
0:15:20 > 0:15:23She died of a very exciting life! OK.
0:15:23 > 0:15:25Let's draw a veil over that.
0:15:25 > 0:15:28Poor Madame La Guerre. But it gives you a sense,
0:15:28 > 0:15:33- he really is buying the very, very top-end stuff from France.- Yes.
0:15:35 > 0:15:38In the white drawing room is one of George's greatest purchases
0:15:38 > 0:15:40from late in his life,
0:15:40 > 0:15:44a writing desk by the furniture maker Jean-Henri Riesener,
0:15:44 > 0:15:47supplier to the French court in the years before the revolution.
0:15:49 > 0:15:51So, when George IV bought this,
0:15:51 > 0:15:54it was sold to him as having come from Versailles.
0:15:54 > 0:15:56There is nothing on this, and we've looked,
0:15:56 > 0:15:58that suggests that it was in Versailles.
0:15:58 > 0:16:00There are no markings on it whatsoever.
0:16:00 > 0:16:03Do you think it was Versailles, yourself? What's your hunch?
0:16:03 > 0:16:06Yeah, I do. There's two others of this exact type,
0:16:06 > 0:16:10one of which has got emblems of the sisters of Louis XV.
0:16:10 > 0:16:12So, it's almost like in the Soviet era,
0:16:12 > 0:16:15- where they used to take people out of photographs.- Yes, yes, exactly.
0:16:15 > 0:16:18They've taken...the royal coat of arms has been removed,
0:16:18 > 0:16:20so that the object is no longer tainted
0:16:20 > 0:16:22by the smell of a fallen monarchy.
0:16:22 > 0:16:24- Yeah, well, it was then saleable. - What does it do?
0:16:24 > 0:16:27Well, I was just going to say, would you like to have a look inside?
0:16:27 > 0:16:31- I'd love to.- I'm just going to don my white gloves.
0:16:31 > 0:16:33- I love pieces of furniture that open...- Yeah.
0:16:33 > 0:16:35..and then reveal secrets within.
0:16:35 > 0:16:38I'm a sucker for it. Here you can...
0:16:38 > 0:16:42Well, if you're French, you can write your billet-doux,
0:16:42 > 0:16:45and arrange your liaisons dangereuses and if you're George,
0:16:45 > 0:16:48I suppose you might write some letters.
0:16:49 > 0:16:50There's a reading slope.
0:16:53 > 0:16:55Wow. That's brilliant!
0:16:55 > 0:16:58This is just what I need. That's so clever.
0:16:58 > 0:17:00Yeah.
0:17:00 > 0:17:04One of the themes running through George's collection is very much
0:17:04 > 0:17:06this connection with the ancien regime.
0:17:06 > 0:17:10What do you think it is that obsesses and fascinates George?
0:17:10 > 0:17:18I think he's interested in this idea of the romantic, lost collections,
0:17:18 > 0:17:20and then of course, come the revolution,
0:17:20 > 0:17:24they were guillotined and then the collections were dispersed.
0:17:24 > 0:17:25So, there's this sense of romance.
0:17:25 > 0:17:28Now, there's also a practical side, because, of course,
0:17:28 > 0:17:31the collections are on the market and so he's able to buy them,
0:17:31 > 0:17:34and not everybody was capable of doing that.
0:17:37 > 0:17:40Of course, George didn't just buy furniture.
0:17:40 > 0:17:43Some of the very greatest paintings in the Royal Collection were bought
0:17:43 > 0:17:46by him, including many here at Buckingham Palace.
0:17:48 > 0:17:51And, yet again, he had those revolutionaries
0:17:51 > 0:17:52over the Channel to thank.
0:17:52 > 0:17:57To paraphrase Wordsworth, "Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,"
0:17:57 > 0:18:01but to be a young art collector was very heaven.
0:18:03 > 0:18:07The great, French, aristocratic picture collections
0:18:07 > 0:18:08were brought to London
0:18:08 > 0:18:13and they went under the hammer and who was there to buy them?
0:18:13 > 0:18:16The future George IV, the Prince of Wales,
0:18:16 > 0:18:20the right man in the right place at the right time.
0:18:26 > 0:18:29As French armies overran the low countries,
0:18:29 > 0:18:32many Dutch collections also found their way
0:18:32 > 0:18:35to the only stable country in Europe - Britain.
0:18:38 > 0:18:40With his connoisseur's eye,
0:18:40 > 0:18:44George snaffled up a collection of Dutch and Flemish masters
0:18:44 > 0:18:46that's simply one of the greatest in the world.
0:18:50 > 0:18:52And what a picture this is, by Cuyp.
0:18:52 > 0:18:57A picture that's all about light and the depiction of light.
0:18:58 > 0:19:06Look at that sky with its shredded cloudage, lit by the evening sun,
0:19:06 > 0:19:09the silhouettes of birds flying through the sky.
0:19:11 > 0:19:14The peasant on his mule, homeward bound.
0:19:16 > 0:19:20Look at all this. Look at this foreground.
0:19:20 > 0:19:22The foliage speckled by light.
0:19:22 > 0:19:26He's actually created that by flicking the canvas.
0:19:26 > 0:19:29It's almost like a Chinese technique,
0:19:29 > 0:19:32and what's really interesting is that we know that Constable,
0:19:32 > 0:19:33the great English Romantic,
0:19:33 > 0:19:36he looked at Cuyp, he was obsessed by Cuyp
0:19:36 > 0:19:37and he did exactly the same thing.
0:19:37 > 0:19:41He created this thin. He called it his snow, "my snow,"
0:19:41 > 0:19:44and he flicked paint onto the surface of the canvas
0:19:44 > 0:19:47and that was really the fundamental origins
0:19:47 > 0:19:50of expressionist approaches to painting -
0:19:50 > 0:19:53ultimately, it then goes into expressionism and Jackson Pollock
0:19:53 > 0:19:55is the perfect example of it.
0:19:55 > 0:19:58So, this is really, at a technical level, a fantastically
0:19:58 > 0:20:00adventurous piece of painting.
0:20:00 > 0:20:01It's a real masterpiece.
0:20:01 > 0:20:04Again, one of the very greatest paintings by Cuyp.
0:20:07 > 0:20:12George finally became king aged 57, in 1820...
0:20:14 > 0:20:17..and, at first, it seemed as if little had changed.
0:20:17 > 0:20:19This was a spendaholic monarch
0:20:19 > 0:20:22who didn't consider his coronation banquet complete
0:20:22 > 0:20:25without the presence of a knight on horseback.
0:20:26 > 0:20:32# Zadok the priest
0:20:32 > 0:20:39# And Nathan the prophet
0:20:39 > 0:20:41# Anointed... #
0:20:41 > 0:20:42But I think that, in his maturity,
0:20:42 > 0:20:48George did finally work out how to channel his natural showmanship
0:20:48 > 0:20:52to a higher purpose - the stabilising power of monarchy.
0:20:59 > 0:21:01In 1822, George went to Edinburgh
0:21:01 > 0:21:06and proved once and for all his mastery of royal spectacle.
0:21:08 > 0:21:11Scotland was a land where memories of the brutal suppression
0:21:11 > 0:21:15of the 1745 Jacobite uprising was still raw.
0:21:17 > 0:21:22No Hanoverian king had ever dared to set foot north of the border.
0:21:23 > 0:21:28A central set piece of the visit was the king's arrival at the old royal
0:21:28 > 0:21:30Palace of Holyroodhouse,
0:21:30 > 0:21:34an event important enough to be commemorated by an eyewitness -
0:21:34 > 0:21:37the leading Scottish painter, David Wilkie, in a work
0:21:37 > 0:21:42that I'm being shown by Royal Collection Trust's Deborah Clarke.
0:21:42 > 0:21:44Aha, here it is.
0:21:44 > 0:21:46A real piece of history.
0:21:46 > 0:21:49He's painted George looking rather pale and I've always wondered
0:21:49 > 0:21:52if that wasn't something to do with the fact
0:21:52 > 0:21:53that he's just got off a boat.
0:21:53 > 0:21:56Apparently, the weather was very bad and he's a little bit seasick,
0:21:56 > 0:21:58or perhaps I'm just imagining that!
0:21:58 > 0:22:01It might have had something to do with it but also,
0:22:01 > 0:22:04it was the king who commissioned this picture
0:22:04 > 0:22:06and had a say in what Wilkie
0:22:06 > 0:22:10was to paint, because Wilkie was determined to paint something for
0:22:10 > 0:22:14the king. The king asked him to paint a scene from the visit
0:22:14 > 0:22:17and he couldn't quite work out what to do and it was the king who said,
0:22:17 > 0:22:21"I want to be shown at the palace of my ancestors."
0:22:21 > 0:22:24And the person who orchestrated it all is Walter Scott,
0:22:24 > 0:22:27who I'm expecting to see among these people
0:22:27 > 0:22:30but I can't work out which one of them he might be.
0:22:30 > 0:22:33You can just see him by the front door of the palace.
0:22:33 > 0:22:36He's this rather sort of shadowy figure in profile.
0:22:36 > 0:22:40Looking rather medieval, I suppose, as you might expect.
0:22:40 > 0:22:45Absolutely. He was given three weeks to arrange the visit,
0:22:45 > 0:22:47so not a great deal of time
0:22:47 > 0:22:50and decided to really go for it, go for all the pageantry.
0:22:50 > 0:22:52Fascinating. So, let's look at some of the other details,
0:22:52 > 0:22:55cos there are one or two things that puzzle me.
0:22:55 > 0:22:58I can see the pageantry that you talk about - Scott's pageantry -
0:22:58 > 0:23:01those men on horseback wearing their splendid costumes
0:23:01 > 0:23:05but, behind them, there looks to be a kind of
0:23:05 > 0:23:07fire blazing in the distance. What would that be?
0:23:07 > 0:23:10Well, what you have to remember, in those days,
0:23:10 > 0:23:14there was no way of knowing exactly when the king was due to arrive.
0:23:14 > 0:23:17People were on tenterhooks for days.
0:23:17 > 0:23:20Even Wilkie himself wrote, "I must wait in the city.
0:23:20 > 0:23:23"I can't leave cos I don't know when the king is due to arrive."
0:23:23 > 0:23:26- So, are you saying that fire is a beacon?- It's a beacon.
0:23:26 > 0:23:29- Brilliant!- So, finally, he'd arrived and the beacons were lit.
0:23:32 > 0:23:37Walter Scott marketed George as a hero from one of his novels.
0:23:37 > 0:23:44One very lucky Edinburgh clothier received a commission for £1,354
0:23:44 > 0:23:49to kit the king out in a fantastical version of Highland costume.
0:23:49 > 0:23:52The typically understated accessories
0:23:52 > 0:23:54still remain in the Royal Collection
0:23:54 > 0:23:58and when David Wilkie painted George in the outfit, he said the king
0:23:58 > 0:24:02reminded him of a giant sausage in tartan.
0:24:03 > 0:24:06Nevertheless, the visit was a great success.
0:24:07 > 0:24:11It was said a seventh of the entire population of Scotland
0:24:11 > 0:24:13turned out to greet the king.
0:24:14 > 0:24:16And when I read about the hubbub,
0:24:16 > 0:24:19I'm reminded of today's royal pageantry,
0:24:19 > 0:24:21the weddings and christenings
0:24:21 > 0:24:24that are such a part of our national life.
0:24:24 > 0:24:28And the crowds weren't just in the streets, they were up there -
0:24:28 > 0:24:30every window, every balcony was packed.
0:24:30 > 0:24:33So much banner and flag-waving
0:24:33 > 0:24:36was there that the walls themselves seemed
0:24:36 > 0:24:42to ripple and one lady, watching it all from a first-floor window,
0:24:42 > 0:24:46wrote in her diary that "The most remarkable thing is perhaps not
0:24:46 > 0:24:48"the plump gentleman in his coach,
0:24:48 > 0:24:52"but the multitude seething around him."
0:24:52 > 0:24:56It's as if the crowd had itself become the spectacle.
0:24:56 > 0:25:01Scotland had been brought together to see its own togetherness.
0:25:08 > 0:25:11400 miles south, a great symbol of British royalty
0:25:11 > 0:25:13was getting an upgrade.
0:25:14 > 0:25:16In the 1820s,
0:25:16 > 0:25:21nearly £1 million was spent turning the draughty castle at Windsor
0:25:21 > 0:25:24into a Gothic redoubt from the pages of Walter Scott.
0:25:25 > 0:25:30This was George's statement of the enduring and stabilising power
0:25:30 > 0:25:32of monarchy.
0:25:32 > 0:25:34The Round Tower at Windsor -
0:25:34 > 0:25:37its silhouette has appeared on a million postcards.
0:25:37 > 0:25:40It's become the trademark, almost, of the monarchy -
0:25:40 > 0:25:42perhaps the nation itself
0:25:42 > 0:25:45and, yet, it didn't always dominate the skyline quite like this.
0:25:45 > 0:25:50It was George IV who had it extended upwards by 30 feet,
0:25:50 > 0:25:55treating it almost like one of those wonderful sculptural candelabra in
0:25:55 > 0:25:59the Grand Service - something that could be adjusted at the royal whim.
0:26:04 > 0:26:06Outside, Windsor is a castle.
0:26:06 > 0:26:09Inside, it's a palace.
0:26:09 > 0:26:13And the whole thing is a kind of temple to British royalty -
0:26:13 > 0:26:17an institution that has survived the decades of revolution
0:26:17 > 0:26:20and emerged victorious from war with France.
0:26:22 > 0:26:26And at the centre of the castle is a collaboration
0:26:26 > 0:26:29with the portrait painter Sir Thomas Lawrence,
0:26:29 > 0:26:31a contemporary of Turner and Constable,
0:26:31 > 0:26:33and just as stormily romantic.
0:26:35 > 0:26:39Lawrence made his sitters seem lit by flashes of lightning.
0:26:39 > 0:26:42He made them beautiful, heroic.
0:26:44 > 0:26:47He did this with George in his coronation portrait.
0:26:49 > 0:26:52And in Windsor Castle's Waterloo Chamber,
0:26:52 > 0:26:56he did the same en masse for the restored monarchies of Europe.
0:26:59 > 0:27:03This is the Waterloo Chamber,
0:27:03 > 0:27:05a great hall of heroes.
0:27:05 > 0:27:08Whenever come in here I feel as though
0:27:08 > 0:27:10a soundtrack ought to be playing,
0:27:10 > 0:27:12perhaps Beethoven's 5th Symphony.
0:27:12 > 0:27:18HE SINGS 5TH SYMPHONY FATE MOTIF
0:27:18 > 0:27:25Up there, at the centre, holding the sword of state, we have Wellington,
0:27:25 > 0:27:29the great hero, the great hero of the Battle of Waterloo,
0:27:29 > 0:27:34the great hero in the British victory over France, the old enemy -
0:27:34 > 0:27:35Napoleon and all that.
0:27:35 > 0:27:39That's what this space was designed to celebrate.
0:27:40 > 0:27:43On the left, Platov, his Russian ally.
0:27:43 > 0:27:48To the right, Blucher, commanding the Prussian forces,
0:27:48 > 0:27:53standing on the battlefield, smoke, lightning, storm clouds.
0:27:53 > 0:27:56There's the smell of gunpowder in the air.
0:27:56 > 0:28:01I think if George IV could've had smoke machines in the room,
0:28:01 > 0:28:02he would have had them.
0:28:02 > 0:28:04How does the space work?
0:28:04 > 0:28:07Well, up there, the military heroes.
0:28:07 > 0:28:12Down here, smaller portraits of leading statesman.
0:28:13 > 0:28:17And, here, on the side walls,
0:28:17 > 0:28:19you've got these monumental portraits
0:28:19 > 0:28:21of the crowned heads of the day.
0:28:21 > 0:28:23There we have the Emperor of Russia.
0:28:23 > 0:28:28Over here, we've got George IV himself.
0:28:28 > 0:28:31It's the monarchs, of course, rather than the generals
0:28:31 > 0:28:34and the statesman who are the real stars of the show.
0:28:34 > 0:28:37For this is a statement by a sometime radical
0:28:37 > 0:28:40that monarchy will triumph in the end.
0:28:41 > 0:28:44And it's all been done in a very British way.
0:28:46 > 0:28:51The British had never liked that kind of huge, trumpeting,
0:28:51 > 0:28:55self-declarative type of painting, the battle scene.
0:28:55 > 0:28:58They'd always preferred the portrait
0:28:58 > 0:29:02and I think George IV's brilliance, with Thomas Lawrence, his painter,
0:29:02 > 0:29:08was to turn the portrait into a version of the victory painting,
0:29:08 > 0:29:12to imply the victory in the setting, in the scene,
0:29:12 > 0:29:15in the smoke, in the romantic ambience,
0:29:15 > 0:29:18while still remaining true to the portrait mould.
0:29:18 > 0:29:22For Thomas Lawrence, all this meant an arduous
0:29:22 > 0:29:24series of painting campaigns.
0:29:24 > 0:29:28But the biggest adventure of all took him to Rome
0:29:28 > 0:29:32and resulted in the creation of THIS picture -
0:29:32 > 0:29:37his masterpiece - the portrait of Pope Pius VII.
0:29:38 > 0:29:42The handling of the fabrics is tremendous.
0:29:42 > 0:29:45Look at the way that he's captured that watered silk.
0:29:45 > 0:29:48The papal slippers.
0:29:48 > 0:29:50No less a figure than Eugene Delacroix,
0:29:50 > 0:29:53the leading French Romantic painter,
0:29:53 > 0:29:56he looked at this picture and he said,
0:29:56 > 0:29:59"Well, gone are the days when we in France
0:29:59 > 0:30:01"ask if the English have any painters."
0:30:01 > 0:30:03This is a masterpiece.
0:30:03 > 0:30:04Lawrence is a master.
0:30:04 > 0:30:07It's a diamond of a painting.
0:30:07 > 0:30:08It's a really special moment.
0:30:08 > 0:30:12This is a moment when British painting is set on a new footing
0:30:12 > 0:30:15in Europe, and British painting actually influences
0:30:15 > 0:30:20continental European painting in a way that had never happened before.
0:30:20 > 0:30:25So, I think, in so many ways, you really have to see George IV
0:30:25 > 0:30:29as one of the great patrons in the entire history of the royal family.
0:30:29 > 0:30:31I certainly think he's...
0:30:31 > 0:30:33There is no-one after Charles I
0:30:33 > 0:30:36who's more significant than George IV.
0:30:39 > 0:30:42After George IV died in 1830,
0:30:42 > 0:30:45The Times dammed him for his decadence,
0:30:45 > 0:30:49saying that he'd contributed more to the demoralisation of society
0:30:49 > 0:30:53than any prince recorded in the pages of history.
0:30:54 > 0:30:58But it was George who left behind the palaces, the castles,
0:30:58 > 0:31:02and the objects that we most identify with the modern monarchy.
0:31:03 > 0:31:05To collect great art
0:31:05 > 0:31:09you need to understand how it speaks to all of us.
0:31:09 > 0:31:13Is it any wonder that the king who left behind so many treasures
0:31:13 > 0:31:17was also the most flawed and perhaps the most human of them all?
0:31:21 > 0:31:24The monarch who would build on George's legacy
0:31:24 > 0:31:28was his niece Victoria, who came to the throne in 1837.
0:31:28 > 0:31:33She's usually cast as louche, old George's uptight opposite,
0:31:33 > 0:31:36but she shared his passion for collecting,
0:31:36 > 0:31:38while keeping within her means.
0:31:38 > 0:31:41And she didn't just use art to define her reign,
0:31:41 > 0:31:45she also used it to define her marriage.
0:31:45 > 0:31:48The union of Victoria and Albert was an arranged marriage
0:31:48 > 0:31:50which actually worked.
0:31:50 > 0:31:54They were first cousins and they met just a few days
0:31:54 > 0:31:57before Victoria's 17th birthday.
0:31:57 > 0:32:01She fondly remembered looking at some drawings on a sofa
0:32:01 > 0:32:03and feeling very much at home.
0:32:04 > 0:32:08In 1839, her second meeting with Albert,
0:32:08 > 0:32:12she noted how beautiful his blue eyes were,
0:32:12 > 0:32:18how noble and exquisite his nose was.
0:32:18 > 0:32:22She was touched by his little moustachios
0:32:22 > 0:32:25and, even more so, by his tiny little whiskers.
0:32:25 > 0:32:30And there they all are captured in this beautiful,
0:32:30 > 0:32:35very early depiction of Albert by Victoria.
0:32:35 > 0:32:37He's every inch...
0:32:38 > 0:32:43..the dashing hero of romantic fantasy.
0:32:43 > 0:32:48Think Byron, think Heathcliff, think Mr Darcy.
0:32:50 > 0:32:56Right next to that drawing is Albert's depiction of Victoria,
0:32:56 > 0:33:00rather more learned, much more deferential.
0:33:00 > 0:33:05The extent which making art was part of their marriage,
0:33:05 > 0:33:09their happy marriage, is exemplified by two images here -
0:33:09 > 0:33:11a watercolour and a drawing.
0:33:11 > 0:33:15A watercolour by Albert, drawing by Victoria.
0:33:15 > 0:33:17They're side by side in the album.
0:33:17 > 0:33:22They were done on the same trip, a voyage round the isle of Jersey.
0:33:22 > 0:33:27Albert's rather smouldering, romantic sunset scene,
0:33:27 > 0:33:32Victoria's rather precise rendering of Norman Point.
0:33:32 > 0:33:35But I think what they give you between them
0:33:35 > 0:33:38is this sense of Victoria and Albert together
0:33:38 > 0:33:40looking at nature, looking at the world, depicting it.
0:33:40 > 0:33:42They make art together
0:33:42 > 0:33:45the way some married couples play Scrabble together.
0:33:45 > 0:33:50For Albert, learning how to make art was the best way to understand it.
0:33:50 > 0:33:55He took lessons in lithography, chalk drawing and etching.
0:33:57 > 0:34:02And here we've actually got Albert's very own etching tools,
0:34:02 > 0:34:08preserved almost as saint's relics here in Windsor.
0:34:08 > 0:34:12And, with these tools, he and Victoria
0:34:12 > 0:34:16embarked on a new adventure in art.
0:34:16 > 0:34:18Namely, an adventure in etching.
0:34:18 > 0:34:21And, very conveniently, they inscribed the images,
0:34:21 > 0:34:25these etchings, in such a way that you know who did what.
0:34:25 > 0:34:31So, here, Victoria invented the image and Albert drew and etched it.
0:34:33 > 0:34:38And to give you some idea of just how many of these etchings were made
0:34:38 > 0:34:43and printed, this entire album is full of them,
0:34:43 > 0:34:47and this is just one of many albums, one per year,
0:34:47 > 0:34:50which they filled with these images.
0:34:50 > 0:34:54And it's open at a page which shows Waldman,
0:34:54 > 0:34:58their characterful dachshund,
0:34:58 > 0:35:03hoping, I think, hoping, hoping, hoping for his next meal.
0:35:08 > 0:35:12In Victoria and Albert's marriage, art held a special place.
0:35:12 > 0:35:15It was somewhere they could both meet as equals.
0:35:17 > 0:35:22This is best seen at their retreat on the Isle of Wight, Osborne House,
0:35:22 > 0:35:25a building that Albert, in effect, designed.
0:35:27 > 0:35:30Artists came and went with ease here.
0:35:30 > 0:35:33And, inside, his and Victoria's personal collections
0:35:33 > 0:35:35were on display.
0:35:35 > 0:35:41Items that might easily have been lost in George IV's echoey palaces.
0:35:45 > 0:35:48This is the grand corridor at Osborne House
0:35:48 > 0:35:53and there's no better place to really see, feel, understand
0:35:53 > 0:35:57the love that both Albert and Victoria had for art.
0:35:57 > 0:36:00Above all, perhaps, the art of sculpture
0:36:00 > 0:36:03because this is really their private sculpture gallery.
0:36:03 > 0:36:05Albert had been on the Grand Tour.
0:36:05 > 0:36:09He'd visited Rome, he'd experienced the great masterpieces of antiquity
0:36:09 > 0:36:12and he loved to be surrounded by classical images.
0:36:12 > 0:36:15Look, inset into the walls are these little plaster casts,
0:36:15 > 0:36:19based on the Elgin Marbles, all around we see heroes and heroines.
0:36:19 > 0:36:23But this is more than just a collection of objects.
0:36:23 > 0:36:25It's also a collection of gifts
0:36:25 > 0:36:29because nearly every single sculpture in here
0:36:29 > 0:36:32was presented either by Victoria to Albert,
0:36:32 > 0:36:34or from Albert to Victoria.
0:36:36 > 0:36:40Victoria and Albert gave gifts with great ceremony.
0:36:40 > 0:36:43Birthday and Christmas tables were laid
0:36:43 > 0:36:46and on them were elaborate displays of art,
0:36:46 > 0:36:49garlanded with bouquets of flowers.
0:36:49 > 0:36:52The whole display would then be recorded as a watercolour,
0:36:52 > 0:36:54a work of art in itself.
0:37:01 > 0:37:04That's quite a birthday present.
0:37:04 > 0:37:051852.
0:37:05 > 0:37:11Queen Victoria gives this picture to Prince Albert
0:37:11 > 0:37:15and it's hung in the room here at Osborne where,
0:37:15 > 0:37:20side by side, they go about the business of running the Empire.
0:37:20 > 0:37:24This is where they sit to go through the dispatch boxes every day
0:37:24 > 0:37:28and that is the picture that Victoria thinks should be on the wall.
0:37:28 > 0:37:31It's basically a voyeur painting,
0:37:31 > 0:37:34lots and lots of female naked flesh
0:37:34 > 0:37:37being spied by that man up in the corner.
0:37:37 > 0:37:39But the way the painting's composed,
0:37:39 > 0:37:43it actually places us in the position of the voyeur.
0:37:43 > 0:37:45What is it?
0:37:45 > 0:37:51A fantastically accomplished piece of high Victorian soft porn.
0:37:51 > 0:37:53Victoria herself described it
0:37:53 > 0:37:57as a beautiful painting of beautiful women.
0:37:57 > 0:38:00And if ever a work from her collection gave the lie
0:38:00 > 0:38:05to the idea that Victoria was Victorian prudish, well, this is it.
0:38:05 > 0:38:10I think this painting was her way of saying to the rather buttoned-up
0:38:10 > 0:38:14Albert that no matter how much work we do here,
0:38:14 > 0:38:17I want you, my beloved,
0:38:17 > 0:38:20to stay in touch with your sexy side.
0:38:21 > 0:38:26Queen Victoria also valued art that fixed a particular moment.
0:38:29 > 0:38:33You can see this at Osborne in a genre of sculpture unique to her.
0:38:34 > 0:38:40Queen Victoria is probably the most famously morbid monarch
0:38:40 > 0:38:44in British history, and it's often thought that she was plunged into
0:38:44 > 0:38:47that morbidity by the death of Albert.
0:38:47 > 0:38:50But these very poignant images show, I think, very clearly,
0:38:50 > 0:38:54that she thought a lot about death long before his passing.
0:38:54 > 0:38:56What are they?
0:38:56 > 0:39:00They're little, marble facsimiles
0:39:00 > 0:39:04of the feet, the hands, and the arms
0:39:04 > 0:39:08of Victoria and Albert's infant children.
0:39:08 > 0:39:13This is the foot of Princess Victoria.
0:39:13 > 0:39:18This is the arm of Princess Louise.
0:39:18 > 0:39:21The arm of Prince Leopold.
0:39:22 > 0:39:27Despite their funereal quality, these are relics of living children,
0:39:27 > 0:39:31sculpted from plaster casts taken while they were fast asleep.
0:39:32 > 0:39:36I think what they tell us, what they speak to Victoria of,
0:39:36 > 0:39:40is the fact that, yes, her children have grown up
0:39:40 > 0:39:43but the children they once were have died.
0:39:43 > 0:39:45They will never come back.
0:39:45 > 0:39:50They can never be, as it were, known again except in this form.
0:39:50 > 0:39:53What a wonderful way it is to remember the child
0:39:53 > 0:39:57that your adult child has grown out of being.
0:39:57 > 0:40:01I think these works of art, and they are works of art, conceived,
0:40:01 > 0:40:05designed, created, in effect, even if she didn't technically make them,
0:40:05 > 0:40:10by Queen Victoria, they were her way of expressing
0:40:10 > 0:40:13the depth of her love for her children
0:40:13 > 0:40:15and her attachment
0:40:15 > 0:40:18to the very idea of childhood as somehow
0:40:18 > 0:40:20a blessed state.
0:40:24 > 0:40:27Albert, a student of art history,
0:40:27 > 0:40:30designed Osborne as a Renaissance Italian palazzo.
0:40:31 > 0:40:35An enormous fresco by William Dyce looms over the main staircase,
0:40:35 > 0:40:39a relic of the Prince's attempt to revive fresco painting
0:40:39 > 0:40:41and introduce it to Britain.
0:40:43 > 0:40:44His dressing room was filled
0:40:44 > 0:40:46with dozens of early Italian masterpieces,
0:40:46 > 0:40:51including this triptych by Duccio, the father of Sienese painting.
0:40:53 > 0:40:58In the 1840s, this was collecting at its most avant-garde.
0:41:05 > 0:41:07Albert was certainly didactic.
0:41:07 > 0:41:11The royal children were expected to grow their own vegetables,
0:41:11 > 0:41:16learn soldiery in a mock-fort and also, of course, to collect.
0:41:19 > 0:41:21What have we here? Well...
0:41:22 > 0:41:25..this is one of my favourite things in all of Osborne House.
0:41:25 > 0:41:28It's Prince Albert's little museum.
0:41:28 > 0:41:32I say museum but what it really is, I think, is a Wunderkammer,
0:41:32 > 0:41:34a room of wonders,
0:41:34 > 0:41:38a cabinet of curiosities because it contains examples
0:41:38 > 0:41:40of more or less everything under the Sun.
0:41:40 > 0:41:44So, for example, in this cabinet, we've got the Far East.
0:41:44 > 0:41:46Trophies of Empire.
0:41:46 > 0:41:50We've got a peacock feather confiscated from the governor
0:41:50 > 0:41:54of one of the Chinese states during one of the Opium Wars.
0:41:54 > 0:41:56And, above, this wonderfully totemic,
0:41:56 > 0:41:59tribal image of Queen Victoria.
0:42:00 > 0:42:05There are, of course, remnants of the culture of the ancient world,
0:42:05 > 0:42:07and, down here, I notice...
0:42:09 > 0:42:13..part of the ceiling of the Necropolis in Athens.
0:42:14 > 0:42:17Sh! Don't tell the Greeks, they might want it back.
0:42:18 > 0:42:21As well as archaeology, there's natural history,
0:42:21 > 0:42:23geology and world culture.
0:42:23 > 0:42:27The traditional dress of two orphans from the Crimean War
0:42:27 > 0:42:31who came to Osborne after being rescued by the Royal Navy.
0:42:31 > 0:42:33There's a dazzling breadth of interest here
0:42:33 > 0:42:36and a sense that anything might be worth collecting.
0:42:38 > 0:42:39I love this.
0:42:39 > 0:42:42Made in South America,
0:42:42 > 0:42:45it's a feathered hat presented to Queen Victoria.
0:42:45 > 0:42:48Now, I like to think that that was her gardening hat.
0:42:48 > 0:42:50I can't prove it and there are no photographs
0:42:50 > 0:42:53but I'm sure she would have worn it.
0:42:53 > 0:42:56And, at the end of the room, you've got this fantastic, spooky
0:42:56 > 0:42:59apparition of an entire stuffed crocodile.
0:42:59 > 0:43:03But what's wonderful about this little family museum
0:43:03 > 0:43:06is the sense that you have, as you read the labels,
0:43:06 > 0:43:10every one of his children added something to it.
0:43:10 > 0:43:13This was added by Beatrice, this was added by Louise,
0:43:13 > 0:43:17this was added by Edward, the future Edward VII.
0:43:17 > 0:43:20What you realise in here is that Albert didn't just give his children
0:43:20 > 0:43:24a love of art, and curiosity, and so on,
0:43:24 > 0:43:28he actually gave them nothing less than a kind of mania
0:43:28 > 0:43:31for collecting and curating.
0:43:36 > 0:43:39Albert's careful curatorial mind was handy
0:43:39 > 0:43:43given the strict budget that he and Victoria set themselves.
0:43:45 > 0:43:49For paintings, Victoria allowed herself £2,000 a year.
0:43:49 > 0:43:54To spread royal patronage around, she and Albert often purchased
0:43:54 > 0:43:57a single, representative painting by an artist.
0:43:59 > 0:44:01John Martin's hymn to the British landscape
0:44:01 > 0:44:04as it was about to disappear under railway lines.
0:44:07 > 0:44:10William Powell Frith's portrait of Victorian society
0:44:10 > 0:44:13on manoeuvres, thanks to those same railways.
0:44:17 > 0:44:20Albert spent a great deal of energy reordering and cataloguing
0:44:20 > 0:44:22the Royal Collection.
0:44:22 > 0:44:26And, at Windsor Castle, he created this beautifully decorated space
0:44:26 > 0:44:29as his own inner sanctum.
0:44:29 > 0:44:32So, the Print Room at Windsor Castle...
0:44:34 > 0:44:39..Albert's brainchild, and there he is, in profile,
0:44:39 > 0:44:40and this beautiful ceiling as well.
0:44:40 > 0:44:42Tell me a little bit about the room.
0:44:42 > 0:44:45Well, the room was configured by Albert in the 1850s,
0:44:45 > 0:44:46completed just before his death.
0:44:46 > 0:44:49And it was essentially to his design
0:44:49 > 0:44:51in the manner of a Renaissance studiolo
0:44:51 > 0:44:53with beautiful plaster, painted ceiling,
0:44:53 > 0:44:55carved cabinets all the way around.
0:44:55 > 0:44:58And this was to house the prints and drawings collection.
0:44:58 > 0:45:02And do you feel this is THE space, among all others,
0:45:02 > 0:45:05that takes us to the heart of Albert?
0:45:05 > 0:45:08Yes. The Raphael collection was the heart of his activity.
0:45:08 > 0:45:11And this is the Raphael cabinet and, as you can see,
0:45:11 > 0:45:17it contains 50 portfolios of prints and photographs
0:45:17 > 0:45:19after the works of Raphael.
0:45:19 > 0:45:22So, this is a kind of database?
0:45:22 > 0:45:24Yes. And, to this day, it's unsurpassed.
0:45:24 > 0:45:27This is the most comprehensive assemblage
0:45:27 > 0:45:30of the works of Raphael in existence.
0:45:30 > 0:45:34- Wow.- If I can just lift this rather heavy portfolio up onto the table.
0:45:34 > 0:45:36So, he was a weightlifter as well as an art historian.
0:45:36 > 0:45:39Well, they had porters in those days.
0:45:39 > 0:45:44And the portfolio that we have here is of the Stanza della Segnatura,
0:45:44 > 0:45:46the ceiling only.
0:45:46 > 0:45:48The coverage was so great he could have an entire portfolio
0:45:48 > 0:45:50devoted to the ceiling of one room.
0:45:50 > 0:45:53So, in the Vatican, can't collect it, can't own it,
0:45:53 > 0:45:56but you can own it, as it were, in photographic form
0:45:56 > 0:45:58- or in reproduction form.- Exactly.
0:45:58 > 0:46:02And photographs are where the Raphael collection is revolutionary
0:46:02 > 0:46:04because it's right at the dawn of photography.
0:46:04 > 0:46:09So, he actually got somebody to go into the Vatican
0:46:09 > 0:46:13and to go into the Stanza della Segnatura, in the Pope's Apartments,
0:46:13 > 0:46:16- and to take photographs? - Yes.- Of these pictures.
0:46:16 > 0:46:18What sort of cameras were they using?
0:46:18 > 0:46:21Well, that's the size of the negative. That's a contact print.
0:46:21 > 0:46:23That's the size of the negative? Man!
0:46:23 > 0:46:26I'm just awestruck by the Victorians.
0:46:26 > 0:46:28But, of course, what it lacked was colour
0:46:28 > 0:46:31and that was provided through these chromolithographs.
0:46:31 > 0:46:35So, now we've got, in effect, a handmade colour photograph.
0:46:35 > 0:46:36And what's the point of it all?
0:46:36 > 0:46:38Who's this for?
0:46:38 > 0:46:40What's Albert trying to achieve?
0:46:40 > 0:46:43It's not just for his own pleasure because he's not like that.
0:46:43 > 0:46:45This was never intended to be the finished product.
0:46:45 > 0:46:48This was a tool for students to use for generations afterwards.
0:46:48 > 0:46:52And Albert hoped that people would come to Windsor and would use
0:46:52 > 0:46:54the Raphael collection,
0:46:54 > 0:46:57and this would be a springboard for the systematic,
0:46:57 > 0:47:00for the scientific study of Raphael's works.
0:47:00 > 0:47:03Which is exactly how I was taught art history,
0:47:03 > 0:47:04- in a photographic library.- Yes.
0:47:04 > 0:47:08So, this is everything you need to try to understand
0:47:08 > 0:47:10- how she came into being?- Yes.
0:47:10 > 0:47:14When one thinks of royal families, kings and queens,
0:47:14 > 0:47:16you often think of them instinctively as people
0:47:16 > 0:47:19who wanted to keep their treasures for themselves, and only their
0:47:19 > 0:47:21courtiers and themselves would ever see these things.
0:47:21 > 0:47:25But Albert and Victoria seem to me, they're completely the opposite.
0:47:25 > 0:47:27They move in the opposite direction.
0:47:27 > 0:47:30They want to take knowledge and art and science,
0:47:30 > 0:47:32they want to take it and give it to the public.
0:47:34 > 0:47:37This interest in the processes of mass reproduction
0:47:37 > 0:47:39is typical of Albert.
0:47:39 > 0:47:42He didn't just want to disseminate knowledge,
0:47:42 > 0:47:46he believed that modern industry could finally put great works of art
0:47:46 > 0:47:48into the hands of the masses.
0:47:52 > 0:47:56In 1843, Prince Albert arrived with much fanfare here in Birmingham.
0:47:56 > 0:48:01He wanted to witness at first hand some of the new,
0:48:01 > 0:48:04cutting-edge manufacturing technology.
0:48:04 > 0:48:05There was great local interest.
0:48:05 > 0:48:10The Birmingham Gazette reported that the Prince was especially interested
0:48:10 > 0:48:14in the operation of batteries in connection
0:48:14 > 0:48:17with various metals in solution.
0:48:17 > 0:48:22He saw a real rose turned into a golden rose
0:48:22 > 0:48:25and he was so fascinated by the process
0:48:25 > 0:48:28that he became positively obsessed by it.
0:48:36 > 0:48:39Albert witnessed a process called electroforming,
0:48:39 > 0:48:43which is being recreated for me by artist Jo Horton.
0:48:44 > 0:48:48A dried rose has been coated in an electrically conductive material
0:48:48 > 0:48:50and attached to a battery.
0:48:50 > 0:48:54A solution containing a precious metal is being prepared.
0:48:54 > 0:48:58Gold in Albert's demonstration, copper in mine.
0:48:58 > 0:49:02So, Igor, the creature lives.
0:49:02 > 0:49:03SHE LAUGHS
0:49:03 > 0:49:07I feel as if I'm transported back into some strange world
0:49:07 > 0:49:10- of 19th-century science. - Yeah, absolutely.
0:49:10 > 0:49:14I'm sort of really inspired, as an artist, by Mary Shelley
0:49:14 > 0:49:16and all that sort of era.
0:49:16 > 0:49:20It's sort of what's drawn me to the whole process itself.
0:49:20 > 0:49:22- Great. Well, I'm.... Dip away. - Absolutely.
0:49:22 > 0:49:25So, we're going in...
0:49:27 > 0:49:31And this will be kept in position to get a first coating.
0:49:33 > 0:49:37The conductive material on the rose attracts copper from the solution,
0:49:37 > 0:49:40gradually encasing the flower and stem.
0:49:42 > 0:49:44So, what's actually happening?
0:49:44 > 0:49:48Well, the copper deposition is thickening
0:49:48 > 0:49:53and it's also travelling down and growing around the rosebud.
0:49:53 > 0:49:56So in about 40 minutes, it should be fully bright.
0:49:56 > 0:49:58We shouldn't have to do any sort of finishing.
0:49:58 > 0:50:03It's a really sort of economical, exciting sort of process.
0:50:03 > 0:50:07I think they actually called the technicians the alchemists.
0:50:07 > 0:50:09- Is that right?- Yes, I think they were described as that.
0:50:12 > 0:50:15- Great, well, let's have a look.- OK. - I'll let you take it out.
0:50:17 > 0:50:19SOLUTION BUBBLES
0:50:21 > 0:50:22There we go.
0:50:22 > 0:50:25- So...- It's a delicate little thing to be turning.
0:50:25 > 0:50:29- Oh, wow.- It is.- That's really good, isn't it? Fantastic.
0:50:29 > 0:50:31It really is. It's just so magical.
0:50:33 > 0:50:37For Albert, electroforming wasn't about gilding flowers.
0:50:37 > 0:50:39Anything could be copied.
0:50:39 > 0:50:42It was a way to reproduce the artworks of classical
0:50:42 > 0:50:44and Renaissance civilisation.
0:50:45 > 0:50:49Reproductions of archaeological finds from Pompeii and Herculaneum
0:50:49 > 0:50:53were copied and made, collected by bourgeois consumers
0:50:53 > 0:50:56as well as Victoria and Albert themselves.
0:50:58 > 0:51:02And Albert commissioned an exquisite jewel cabinet for Victoria,
0:51:02 > 0:51:05replete with electroformed figures to show the new
0:51:05 > 0:51:08could sit alongside the antique.
0:51:11 > 0:51:14It was placed prominently in the Great Exhibition of 1851.
0:51:17 > 0:51:21Albert was the prime mover in this first, great international showcase.
0:51:23 > 0:51:27An optimistic attempt to understand the new machine age preserved for
0:51:27 > 0:51:31Victoria and Albert in a souvenir album filled with watercolours
0:51:31 > 0:51:33by Joseph Nash and Louis Haghe.
0:51:37 > 0:51:41But, for me, Albert's most enduring legacy was created after
0:51:41 > 0:51:45the Great Exhibition, and you can see this on the streets
0:51:45 > 0:51:47of South Kensington in London.
0:51:53 > 0:51:56For my money, for anyone's money,
0:51:56 > 0:52:00this is one of the most telling monuments of Victorian Britain.
0:52:00 > 0:52:02At the top, Albert.
0:52:03 > 0:52:09On the side, the financial accounts, the score.
0:52:09 > 0:52:13The Great Exhibition cost £336,000.
0:52:15 > 0:52:19The revenues, £522,000.
0:52:20 > 0:52:23Translate that into modern money,
0:52:23 > 0:52:2850 million spent, 80 million back.
0:52:28 > 0:52:30And what did Albert do with the profit?
0:52:30 > 0:52:32The profit from his great scheme...
0:52:33 > 0:52:35..he bought this!
0:52:35 > 0:52:38He bought this. He bought South Ken!
0:52:38 > 0:52:42And he stipulated that here should be placed great museums of art,
0:52:42 > 0:52:44science, industry.
0:52:44 > 0:52:46And it came to pass.
0:52:46 > 0:52:49No wonder that, even in his own lifetime, this whole area
0:52:49 > 0:52:51became known as Albertopolis.
0:52:51 > 0:52:54What a man, what a visionary!
0:52:56 > 0:52:59South Kensington is the embodiment of Albert's enlightened,
0:52:59 > 0:53:02Germanic belief that culture and learning
0:53:02 > 0:53:04should be at the very heart of a nation.
0:53:06 > 0:53:09One of the earliest institutions to open here
0:53:09 > 0:53:12was the South Kensington Museum in 1857.
0:53:12 > 0:53:15Most people know it today as the V&A.
0:53:16 > 0:53:21Museums change lives and this museum certainly changed mine.
0:53:21 > 0:53:24It was the first place my mum brought me to when I was little boy
0:53:24 > 0:53:27to look at and to enjoy art, and I doubt very much whether I'd be doing
0:53:27 > 0:53:30what I do now if it weren't for the V&A.
0:53:30 > 0:53:35And I'm sure my story has been repeated thousands of times.
0:53:35 > 0:53:39How many photographers have come here to deepen their understanding
0:53:39 > 0:53:42of their craft? How many designers have come here to beg,
0:53:42 > 0:53:43borrow or steal an idea?
0:53:43 > 0:53:46How many artists have come here to seek inspiration?
0:53:46 > 0:53:50I think Albert was the very first member of the royal family
0:53:50 > 0:53:55profoundly to realise that by taking art out to the people
0:53:55 > 0:54:00of Great Britain, art could be used to improve the life of the nation.
0:54:00 > 0:54:03And we call it the Victorian Age,
0:54:03 > 0:54:07but surely it should also be remembered as the age of Albert.
0:54:10 > 0:54:12We all know how this ended.
0:54:14 > 0:54:18The energetic Albert died on December 14 1861...
0:54:19 > 0:54:21..aged only 42.
0:54:22 > 0:54:25The impact on Victoria was profound.
0:54:34 > 0:54:37For three months after Albert's death
0:54:37 > 0:54:43Victoria couldn't bear to come in here to his sanctum, the Print Room.
0:54:43 > 0:54:47And, then, on the 20th of March 1862
0:54:47 > 0:54:52she writes this very stoical entry in her diary.
0:54:52 > 0:54:57She says she's brought herself to go to the Print Room,
0:54:57 > 0:55:00"the favourite resort of my dearest Albert."
0:55:02 > 0:55:04And then she simply adds,
0:55:04 > 0:55:09"I was much upset and could say nothing."
0:55:11 > 0:55:14They still keep, in this room...
0:55:16 > 0:55:21..these four albums of drawings and watercolours,
0:55:21 > 0:55:26all of them made by Victoria in the five or six years
0:55:26 > 0:55:29immediately after Albert's death.
0:55:31 > 0:55:37Each year is prefaced with one of these little inscriptions.
0:55:37 > 0:55:39A black cross,
0:55:39 > 0:55:43"The fourth year of my great sorrow."
0:55:44 > 0:55:46What of the images themselves? Well...
0:55:48 > 0:55:52..it's a sad contrast with the earlier albums, where so often,
0:55:52 > 0:55:55you can sense the couple's pleasure in pasting Victoria's image
0:55:55 > 0:55:57this side, Albert's image that side.
0:55:57 > 0:56:00There's none of this here because,
0:56:00 > 0:56:03of course, all the images are by Victoria.
0:56:04 > 0:56:08I wouldn't psychoanalyse the watercolours to the extent
0:56:08 > 0:56:13of seeing them as artistic expressions of some deep, deep, deep
0:56:13 > 0:56:16depression, although perhaps there is an element of that.
0:56:16 > 0:56:19I think they're also actually very helpful to Victoria.
0:56:19 > 0:56:23I think her love of art that she'd cultivated with Albert gave her
0:56:23 > 0:56:26an ability to get outside of herself, literally,
0:56:26 > 0:56:30to see something outside herself and transmit it to paper.
0:56:30 > 0:56:31And I think that probably had
0:56:31 > 0:56:34a considerable therapeutic function for her.
0:56:34 > 0:56:38But, occasionally, you can sense that some of the images
0:56:38 > 0:56:40descend to a darker place.
0:56:41 > 0:56:43This one in particular.
0:56:44 > 0:56:49A small but singularly eerie and rather bleak watercolour
0:56:49 > 0:56:51which she's written,
0:56:51 > 0:56:55"View from my window at Balmoral...
0:56:57 > 0:56:59"..by moonlight."
0:57:01 > 0:57:05So, you can sense a bit of insomnia, a bit of unrest,
0:57:05 > 0:57:06a bit of disturbance.
0:57:06 > 0:57:09And on the very next page there is an image of Albert's mausoleum
0:57:09 > 0:57:13so we know the way in which her thoughts were turning.
0:57:16 > 0:57:18But away from Victoria's private grief
0:57:18 > 0:57:21something else had been snuffed out.
0:57:21 > 0:57:24She would continue to collect but never with the flair and ambition
0:57:24 > 0:57:26she had displayed during her marriage.
0:57:27 > 0:57:31As a result, I think Albert's death marked the last moment
0:57:31 > 0:57:34when the Court influenced the wider culture of the nation
0:57:34 > 0:57:37as it had in the days of Charles I and George III.
0:57:39 > 0:57:43Take the period from the French Revolution to 1861, when Albert died.
0:57:43 > 0:57:48It really was a golden age of royal patronage and collecting.
0:57:48 > 0:57:52Think of George IV's immense appetite for art, architecture,
0:57:52 > 0:57:55the decorative arts, tableware, you name it.
0:57:55 > 0:57:59Think of Albert's astonishing energy, his spreading the word.
0:57:59 > 0:58:03His proselytising, his working with Victoria.
0:58:03 > 0:58:05But the truth is that, after Albert's death,
0:58:05 > 0:58:08things would never quite be the same again.
0:58:08 > 0:58:11This golden moment had passed.
0:58:14 > 0:58:18In the final episode, the Royal Collection enters modern times.
0:58:18 > 0:58:21As the monarchy adapts to the end of Empire and a world at war,
0:58:21 > 0:58:25I explore how the character of its collecting changed...
0:58:26 > 0:58:28..entering a smaller, more intimate realm.