0:00:10 > 0:00:14If you want to see something truly breathtaking...
0:00:14 > 0:00:17..come in closer. This is the Mosaic Egg.
0:00:18 > 0:00:20A Faberge Egg,
0:00:20 > 0:00:22one of the most remarkable,
0:00:22 > 0:00:26one of the most precious objects in the entire Royal Collection.
0:00:26 > 0:00:30A lace-like structure of astonishing delicacy.
0:00:30 > 0:00:35Sapphires, diamonds, seed pearls.
0:00:35 > 0:00:37An extraordinary thing.
0:00:37 > 0:00:42This egg was made in 1914, at a time when the British Royal family was
0:00:42 > 0:00:46exchanging Faberge's confections with their cousins,
0:00:46 > 0:00:48the Russian imperial dynasty.
0:00:49 > 0:00:52But while the British monarchy has flourished,
0:00:52 > 0:00:57the reign and life of Tsar Nicholas II was brutally cut short.
0:00:57 > 0:01:02He, and his family, executed in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution.
0:01:04 > 0:01:06So this egg is a cautionary object.
0:01:08 > 0:01:12An egg is a fragile thing.
0:01:12 > 0:01:15So, too, is a monarchy in the 20th century.
0:01:16 > 0:01:20And monarchs only survive if they adapt and change.
0:01:24 > 0:01:26In this final episode of the series,
0:01:26 > 0:01:30I'm exploring the last century-and-a-half of the Royal Collection,
0:01:30 > 0:01:32when women took charge.
0:01:33 > 0:01:36From Victoria to Elizabeth II,
0:01:36 > 0:01:41these queens and queen consorts have used art to steer the monarchy
0:01:41 > 0:01:44through times of crisis and turbulent change.
0:01:47 > 0:01:49Here's how they navigated the age of empire...
0:01:52 > 0:01:54..and the advent of mass reproduction.
0:01:54 > 0:01:58She is definitely trying to control how people perceive her.
0:02:00 > 0:02:04Through their collecting, they've expressed solidarity with a broken nation.
0:02:07 > 0:02:09And displayed defiance under threat.
0:02:09 > 0:02:16The overwhelming impression, for me, is one of foreboding.
0:02:16 > 0:02:18The stormy mentality of siege.
0:02:19 > 0:02:24In modern times, the Royal Collection survived a calamitous fire and risen
0:02:24 > 0:02:28from the ashes as palace doors have opened to more people
0:02:28 > 0:02:31than ever before.
0:02:31 > 0:02:34And it's still growing, still being added to.
0:02:34 > 0:02:37I have the sense that you very much like a project, sir.
0:02:37 > 0:02:40I do, rather. Oh, yes.
0:02:40 > 0:02:43Very important.
0:02:45 > 0:02:51And I do think that if you trace the development of the Royal Collection
0:02:51 > 0:02:54during that 100 years and more,
0:02:54 > 0:02:58what you see very clearly is the determined emergence
0:02:58 > 0:03:00of a modern monarchy.
0:03:22 > 0:03:25I've spent a year exploring the Royal Collection.
0:03:27 > 0:03:31Over a million works of art and decorative objects owned by the Queen
0:03:31 > 0:03:33in her official role as monarch.
0:03:34 > 0:03:37The cream of the collection's mostly on display,
0:03:37 > 0:03:41on the walls and ceilings of some of Britain's most-visited palaces.
0:03:43 > 0:03:47But away from the public gaze there are lesser-known works.
0:03:49 > 0:03:52In St James's Palace there are paintings by household names in
0:03:52 > 0:03:55Queen Victoria's time,
0:03:55 > 0:03:57who've since fallen out of fashion.
0:04:00 > 0:04:04And then there are reminders of things that we'd rather forget.
0:04:06 > 0:04:09Now, right from the start of Queen Victoria's reign,
0:04:09 > 0:04:13the objects and the images that came into the Royal Collection reflected
0:04:13 > 0:04:18the extraordinary growth of British influence overseas.
0:04:18 > 0:04:22Above all, empire in India.
0:04:22 > 0:04:24It wasn't always a pretty story.
0:04:26 > 0:04:27CLASH AND TUMULT OF BATTLE
0:04:31 > 0:04:36This billboard-sized canvas by the artist Edward Armitage isn't just
0:04:36 > 0:04:38one of Victoria's larger purchases.
0:04:38 > 0:04:42It's also possibly her most bloodcurdling.
0:04:43 > 0:04:48A depiction of the 1843 Battle of Meeanee when British troops seized
0:04:48 > 0:04:52the province of Sindh in what is now Pakistan.
0:04:52 > 0:04:59Now, British forces were outnumbered ten to one but their victory was a
0:04:59 > 0:05:00foregone conclusion.
0:05:00 > 0:05:07They had vastly superior organisation and weaponry.
0:05:07 > 0:05:13The armies of the Amirs of Sindh lost 6,000 men.
0:05:13 > 0:05:18British casualties were fewer than 300 dead and wounded.
0:05:18 > 0:05:22It wasn't so much a battle, as a massacre.
0:05:22 > 0:05:26Thackeray, the novelist, author of Vanity Fair, detested this picture.
0:05:26 > 0:05:30He thought it was immoral, an encouragement to murder.
0:05:30 > 0:05:34He particularly detested that figure.
0:05:35 > 0:05:37The phlegmatic infantryman...
0:05:38 > 0:05:44..doing away with his enemy, grinding his bayonet into his body.
0:05:44 > 0:05:47Thackeray thought it looks as though he's trying to torture him at the
0:05:47 > 0:05:52moment of killing him. And he was even more appalled when
0:05:52 > 0:05:56the man next to him, looking up at the picture, approvingly said,
0:05:56 > 0:05:58"He's giving him his gruel."
0:06:00 > 0:06:03So why did Victoria buy this work?
0:06:03 > 0:06:08I suspect it's to do with the way a rather shabby battle's been presented,
0:06:08 > 0:06:12as an epic struggle to be remembered down the ages.
0:06:12 > 0:06:17The Sindhi fighters, noble defenders of a tragically lost cause.
0:06:19 > 0:06:24Well, I think that's what Victoria loved about the painting.
0:06:24 > 0:06:27She liked the way that Armitage had
0:06:27 > 0:06:31elevated a real event and made it feel like
0:06:31 > 0:06:35part of history with a capital H.
0:06:35 > 0:06:37Destiny with a capital D.
0:06:37 > 0:06:43She liked to feel that she was both a witness to and a participant in...
0:06:44 > 0:06:46..the great forward march of history,
0:06:46 > 0:06:49the great forward march of the British Empire.
0:06:52 > 0:06:55British India would play a great part in Victoria's own destiny.
0:06:57 > 0:07:02In the later 19th century, a political project was put in place to bind the
0:07:02 > 0:07:06people of India closer to their British overlords.
0:07:06 > 0:07:09So, Queen Victoria and her family became the
0:07:09 > 0:07:12personable faces of empire.
0:07:13 > 0:07:18As part of this, a major event took place in 1875,
0:07:18 > 0:07:21a royal tour of India.
0:07:21 > 0:07:24Not by Victoria herself, but her eldest son,
0:07:24 > 0:07:27the affable Albert Edward, Prince of Wales.
0:07:29 > 0:07:34I've come to Leicester's New Walk Museum and Art Gallery to discover
0:07:34 > 0:07:37more about his four-month visit.
0:07:37 > 0:07:39Travelling by boat, train,
0:07:39 > 0:07:44carriage and elephant to areas that Britain controlled directly
0:07:44 > 0:07:46or through local rulers.
0:07:46 > 0:07:49It was the custom in India to present honoured guests with
0:07:49 > 0:07:53magnificent presents and for them to respond in kind.
0:07:53 > 0:07:58And the Prince's inner circle feared a terrible escalation,
0:07:58 > 0:08:01the sort of thing that happens at Christmas when someone's given you
0:08:01 > 0:08:03something that you can't afford to match.
0:08:03 > 0:08:07So, they sent out instructions - nothing too magnificent,
0:08:07 > 0:08:12nothing too special, no gold, no silver, no jewellery.
0:08:12 > 0:08:14Arms and armour, yes, but please, please, rein it in.
0:08:17 > 0:08:21Those supposedly modest gifts are now in the Royal Collection.
0:08:23 > 0:08:27I'm seeing them as they're prepared for a touring exhibition by curator
0:08:27 > 0:08:29Kajal Meghani.
0:08:32 > 0:08:34So, Kajal, looking at the case,
0:08:34 > 0:08:37I'd have to say, I don't think that they did rein it in, did they?
0:08:37 > 0:08:41Not at all. I think there's an element of trying to impress Albert Edward,
0:08:41 > 0:08:43Prince of Wales. But also,
0:08:43 > 0:08:47it is this traditional aspect of Indian diplomacy.
0:08:47 > 0:08:51This is an incredible dagger that was presented by the Maharajah of Alwar,
0:08:51 > 0:08:53Mangal Singh.
0:08:53 > 0:08:57And the blade has a channel that's been drilled into it,
0:08:57 > 0:09:00which has been filled with loose pearls that move
0:09:00 > 0:09:02as you tilt the dagger.
0:09:02 > 0:09:05You'd want to be careful with that, it's pretty sharp, isn't it?
0:09:05 > 0:09:08Yes. All these weapons were designed to be functional
0:09:08 > 0:09:10but also very, very beautiful.
0:09:10 > 0:09:12Well, maybe we should look at something a little bit less lethal.
0:09:12 > 0:09:15Yes.
0:09:15 > 0:09:17Oh, this is an interesting case.
0:09:17 > 0:09:19I love these things.
0:09:19 > 0:09:23So, they're late-18th-century brass military figures that were
0:09:23 > 0:09:25commissioned by the Raja of Pithapuram.
0:09:25 > 0:09:29And the legend attached to these figures were that he should review
0:09:29 > 0:09:30his troops daily.
0:09:30 > 0:09:34So they're individually modelled and they represent all the sort of
0:09:34 > 0:09:36different members that would be within his army.
0:09:36 > 0:09:39Ah! So he couldn't actually inspect his whole army
0:09:39 > 0:09:43every day but he had a sort of chess set made of his army, out of bronze.
0:09:43 > 0:09:46- Exactly.- So he's got soldiers on elephants,
0:09:46 > 0:09:51he's got a wonderful African mercenary armed with a blunderbuss.
0:09:54 > 0:09:59The gifts that were presented, they represent a snapshot of time, place,
0:09:59 > 0:10:02also the different types of craftsmanship that were being
0:10:02 > 0:10:04practised on the subcontinent during this period.
0:10:08 > 0:10:10HE CHUCKLES
0:10:10 > 0:10:13I'm smiling because Kajal's been very, very kind.
0:10:13 > 0:10:16I asked, not thinking that you would be able to,
0:10:16 > 0:10:19asked if we could actually have this out of the case.
0:10:19 > 0:10:21And you agreed and here it is.
0:10:21 > 0:10:23What a fantastic thing!
0:10:23 > 0:10:25This is one of the star objects of our exhibition
0:10:25 > 0:10:29because the level of craftsmanship is astounding.
0:10:29 > 0:10:30You're not kidding.
0:10:30 > 0:10:32I think this is one of your favourites, too.
0:10:32 > 0:10:34- This is one of my favourites.- Yeah.
0:10:34 > 0:10:36- It's an inkwell.- It is.
0:10:36 > 0:10:40It's got a pen, that's the mast here.
0:10:40 > 0:10:42Oh, wow.
0:10:42 > 0:10:45And if you look closely, there's an inscription or a dedication to
0:10:45 > 0:10:49the Prince of Wales, in English, from the Maharajah of Benares.
0:10:49 > 0:10:53So, the Maharajah of Benares on the Ganges?
0:10:53 > 0:10:56Yes, he's the donor of this gift,
0:10:56 > 0:11:00so the Prince actually travelled down the River Ganges
0:11:00 > 0:11:03on a similar barge in January 1876.
0:11:03 > 0:11:05How fantastic.
0:11:05 > 0:11:08The deck comes off to reveal two inkwells.
0:11:08 > 0:11:10All enamelled, as well.
0:11:10 > 0:11:14Enamelled. Got a pair of scissors and a penknife, too.
0:11:14 > 0:11:16Oh! It's just wonderful.
0:11:16 > 0:11:19You sort of wonder if it would float.
0:11:19 > 0:11:22- I'm not suggesting...- Don't do that! - No, no!
0:11:22 > 0:11:25Pen-boat diplomacy, you might say.
0:11:25 > 0:11:29The Prince's visit was hailed as a great success and soon after,
0:11:29 > 0:11:33Victoria was made Empress of India.
0:11:33 > 0:11:36The proclamation, the first Delhi Durbar,
0:11:36 > 0:11:39took place on the 1st of January 1877.
0:11:41 > 0:11:46An enormous piece of theatre as well as a cynical bit of empire politics.
0:11:48 > 0:11:52- But the thing about Victoria is that - she- was never cynical.
0:11:53 > 0:11:57The woman who'd purchased bloody paintings of conquest really would
0:11:57 > 0:12:00take her new role to heart.
0:12:00 > 0:12:02For the rest of her life, India would be
0:12:02 > 0:12:04a place of fascination for Victoria.
0:12:04 > 0:12:07And while she never visited India herself,
0:12:07 > 0:12:12she did encounter its people and its culture through art.
0:12:16 > 0:12:20India's Empress held court at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight,
0:12:20 > 0:12:24gamely taking lessons in Hindustani from her Indian attendants.
0:12:27 > 0:12:32And in a new wing, the Durbar Room, a plaster and papier-mache fantasy,
0:12:32 > 0:12:37this was Victoria's own personal portal to the subcontinent -
0:12:37 > 0:12:40India-on-sea.
0:12:42 > 0:12:46And in an adjacent corridor, one of her most surprising commissions,
0:12:46 > 0:12:51from the Austrian artist Rudolf Swoboda.
0:12:51 > 0:12:55She asks Swoboda to spend all of two years in the subcontinent,
0:12:55 > 0:13:00painting a representative cross-section of the population.
0:13:00 > 0:13:06And he painted, one by one, Indians who struck his attention,
0:13:06 > 0:13:08whom he found interesting.
0:13:08 > 0:13:14He tried not to choose them for wealth or high status or low status.
0:13:14 > 0:13:17He tried to be very, very even-handed.
0:13:17 > 0:13:22And they're painted with tremendous brio and panache.
0:13:22 > 0:13:24That gentleman up there,
0:13:24 > 0:13:28the man with the white turban and the exploding star-shaped beard.
0:13:28 > 0:13:31He was probably painted in about 40 minutes,
0:13:31 > 0:13:33so you have this wonderful immediacy.
0:13:33 > 0:13:37A kind of slowed-down version of photographic immediacy.
0:13:37 > 0:13:38And what's really striking and
0:13:38 > 0:13:41unusual about them from a 19th-century perspective
0:13:41 > 0:13:45is that there is very, very little sense of that rather
0:13:45 > 0:13:50repulsive imperialist set of preconceptions about people,
0:13:50 > 0:13:51that people are specimens, if you like.
0:13:51 > 0:13:53There's none of that here. No.
0:13:53 > 0:13:57These people, exotic though they may have seemed to 19th-century
0:13:57 > 0:14:02Englishmen, are depicted and respected, I think,
0:14:02 > 0:14:06by the artist, as human beings.
0:14:06 > 0:14:09They simply say, well, here they are.
0:14:12 > 0:14:16It seems to me there was quite a step change in Victoria's thinking.
0:14:16 > 0:14:18Becoming more outward-looking,
0:14:18 > 0:14:22choosing to spend the winter of her days surrounded by these faces.
0:14:23 > 0:14:27I have to say, I think there's something rather cheering about her
0:14:27 > 0:14:29capacity for change.
0:14:31 > 0:14:34But Victoria's eyes weren't just on India.
0:14:34 > 0:14:36She wanted to be Empress of Europe, as well.
0:14:38 > 0:14:42Over the years, she'd manoeuvred her children and grandchildren into a
0:14:42 > 0:14:47series of strategic marriages with the other great royal houses.
0:14:48 > 0:14:52In Windsor Castle's grand corridor there's a painting by Laurits Tuxen,
0:14:52 > 0:14:55of what Victoria called her "royal mob."
0:14:59 > 0:15:00Pictures can be time machines.
0:15:00 > 0:15:02This one certainly is.
0:15:02 > 0:15:08It's 1887, it's Windsor Castle, and it's Queen Victoria's Jubilee.
0:15:08 > 0:15:12Victoria sits in the centre of the scene...
0:15:12 > 0:15:16..surrounded by her children and by her larger family.
0:15:16 > 0:15:22For although these are, in effect, the assembled crowned heads of Europe,
0:15:22 > 0:15:25everyone in the room is related to
0:15:25 > 0:15:28her either by descent or by marriage.
0:15:29 > 0:15:34The artist casts a rosy glow over it all.
0:15:34 > 0:15:40A candelabra glimmers in an antechamber beyond.
0:15:40 > 0:15:43Two ladies playing the piano.
0:15:43 > 0:15:45But look more closely
0:15:45 > 0:15:50and you soon begin to hear false notes.
0:15:50 > 0:15:55This is Princess Alexandra, a Dane. She faces her husband,
0:15:55 > 0:16:00the future Edward VII, but look how far away she is from him,
0:16:00 > 0:16:03Frederick, Crown Prince of Prussia.
0:16:03 > 0:16:05She insisted to the artist that she
0:16:05 > 0:16:07would not be painted anywhere near him
0:16:07 > 0:16:11because of the traumatic events of 1864.
0:16:11 > 0:16:16The war between Prussia and Denmark, during which,
0:16:16 > 0:16:19in the space of just a few hours,
0:16:19 > 0:16:25the Prussian armies decimated an entire young generation of Danes,
0:16:25 > 0:16:28and condemned her nation to defeat.
0:16:28 > 0:16:31And there are portents of what's to come.
0:16:33 > 0:16:35Look, in this corner,
0:16:35 > 0:16:39that's the man we now know as the Kaiser.
0:16:39 > 0:16:41Wilhelm II,
0:16:41 > 0:16:45who would take Germany into the First World War.
0:16:45 > 0:16:47So, yes,
0:16:47 > 0:16:49it's a family celebration, but it's
0:16:49 > 0:16:52also a picture of just how dangerous,
0:16:52 > 0:16:58just how volatile, just how explosive the world was
0:16:58 > 0:17:02as it entered the 20th century.
0:17:04 > 0:17:06Of this next generation,
0:17:06 > 0:17:11I think it was the glamorous Danish Princess of Wales, Alexandra,
0:17:11 > 0:17:14who did most to bring the monarchy into the modern age.
0:17:15 > 0:17:20The best place to encounter her is at the top of a very steep set of
0:17:20 > 0:17:23stairs in Windsor's Round Tower.
0:17:24 > 0:17:29Now, here's the thing. Up there you'll find the royal archives.
0:17:30 > 0:17:32Thousands upon thousands of documents.
0:17:32 > 0:17:36But it's also where they keep all of the photographs in the
0:17:36 > 0:17:41Royal Collection, one of the world's greatest collections of photography.
0:17:41 > 0:17:44450,000 images.
0:17:44 > 0:17:47So, let's go and have a look.
0:17:47 > 0:17:50Onward and upward!
0:17:56 > 0:17:59The photographic collection was founded by Victoria and Albert.
0:18:02 > 0:18:07But in the later 19th century, photography belonged to the young.
0:18:07 > 0:18:11And Alexandra, in particular, understood how royalty could use this new form
0:18:11 > 0:18:14of image-making to its own advantage.
0:18:15 > 0:18:19Royal Collection Trust's Sophie Gordon is showing me how Alexandra
0:18:19 > 0:18:23embraced the medium in front of the lens and behind it.
0:18:23 > 0:18:30These portraits, which show the Princess of Wales in 1867...
0:18:30 > 0:18:34Gosh, she looks like a Pre-Raphaelite lady with her long hair.
0:18:34 > 0:18:38Yes, it's the long hair that makes this a really unusual portrait.
0:18:38 > 0:18:44It was taken during her recovery from an illness that she had around
0:18:44 > 0:18:47the time of the birth of her third child, Princess Louise.
0:18:47 > 0:18:50And there was a lot of public concern about her health.
0:18:50 > 0:18:54And so these photographs were issued to show that she was on the way to
0:18:54 > 0:18:57- good health.- I'm not an expert but even I know about this one.
0:18:57 > 0:19:00Because this is such a famous image.
0:19:00 > 0:19:03It was one of the most famous photographs in the 19th century.
0:19:03 > 0:19:08It shows Princess Alexandra with her child, Princess Louise, on her back.
0:19:08 > 0:19:10On her back, but not in the arms of the governess.
0:19:10 > 0:19:12It's remarkably relaxed, isn't it?
0:19:12 > 0:19:14- Yeah.- It's just showing someone who's playful,
0:19:14 > 0:19:18who's in touch with her emotions, who wants to play with her child.
0:19:18 > 0:19:20It's completely unprecedented, really,
0:19:20 > 0:19:23in how a member of the Royal family is being presented here.
0:19:23 > 0:19:29So, she is definitely trying to control how people perceive her.
0:19:29 > 0:19:34Alexandra was quirkily creative, arranging photographs into elaborate,
0:19:34 > 0:19:37almost surrealistic collages.
0:19:38 > 0:19:40Some are very Monty Python,
0:19:40 > 0:19:43although you'd have to be part of her gang to get the joke.
0:19:44 > 0:19:46Who, I wonder, is this spider,
0:19:46 > 0:19:49trapping these poor ladies in his web?
0:19:51 > 0:19:52But with the introduction of
0:19:52 > 0:19:55lightweight portable cameras in the 1880s,
0:19:55 > 0:20:00Alexandra became a photographer in her own right.
0:20:00 > 0:20:02Oh, wow.
0:20:02 > 0:20:07And you can immediately see the sort of photographs that she's producing.
0:20:07 > 0:20:13There's a big emphasis in her work on contrasting light and dark and
0:20:13 > 0:20:16the interplay of shadows, for example, in different textures.
0:20:16 > 0:20:18And she seems to be particularly drawn to seascapes.
0:20:20 > 0:20:23Yes, she's quite the romantic, isn't she?
0:20:23 > 0:20:24It's quite surprising, really.
0:20:24 > 0:20:25It's in keeping with a
0:20:25 > 0:20:28movement that was happening in photography at
0:20:28 > 0:20:30the end of the 19th century,
0:20:30 > 0:20:31the Pictorialist movement,
0:20:31 > 0:20:35where there is this great emphasis on contrasting light
0:20:35 > 0:20:36and dark and shadow.
0:20:36 > 0:20:41And it's part of a bigger move to really establish photography as an
0:20:41 > 0:20:42art form in its own right.
0:20:42 > 0:20:45And they're interestingly printed on matte paper.
0:20:45 > 0:20:47- Yes.- You could almost imagine that
0:20:47 > 0:20:49the photographic ink has been applied
0:20:49 > 0:20:52like a watercolour.
0:20:52 > 0:20:54That is fantastic, isn't it?
0:20:54 > 0:20:55And that speaks to me of her
0:20:55 > 0:20:57commitment to be a photographer because to
0:20:57 > 0:20:59take a picture like that as the
0:20:59 > 0:21:02storm clouds whip in off the North Sea
0:21:02 > 0:21:05and the boat begins to heave and the swell begins to rise,
0:21:05 > 0:21:07you've really got to want to take a photograph.
0:21:07 > 0:21:09She was clearly determined.
0:21:09 > 0:21:12She's a fascinating character.
0:21:15 > 0:21:17When she wasn't behind the lens,
0:21:17 > 0:21:20Queen Alexandra, as she was from 1901,
0:21:20 > 0:21:24was the very embodiment of turn-of- the-century elegance,
0:21:24 > 0:21:29presiding over a final gilded age of European royalty that blossomed
0:21:29 > 0:21:33before the First World War.
0:21:33 > 0:21:38Her sister, Dagmar, had married into Russia's Romanov dynasty.
0:21:38 > 0:21:39Mother of Tsar Nicholas II,
0:21:39 > 0:21:43Dagmar introduced Alexandra to the work of Russian jeweller
0:21:43 > 0:21:46Peter Carl Faberge,
0:21:46 > 0:21:50whose confections began to be enthusiastically stockpiled by the
0:21:50 > 0:21:54British Royal family.
0:21:54 > 0:21:57Royal Collection Trust's Caroline De Guitaut
0:21:57 > 0:22:01is showing me a few extraordinary highlights.
0:22:01 > 0:22:03What a treat you've got in store for me.
0:22:03 > 0:22:05How amazing.
0:22:05 > 0:22:07- I've got a few treats for you to look at.- Oh!
0:22:07 > 0:22:10These are amongst the most complex of the Faberge pieces that were
0:22:10 > 0:22:13produced by Carl Faberge and his craftsmen.
0:22:13 > 0:22:17And that's because they incorporate so many different techniques.
0:22:17 > 0:22:23You have the stone carving, which is very much a strong tradition in the
0:22:23 > 0:22:24Russian decorative arts.
0:22:24 > 0:22:29And so here you have what appears to be a vase full of water.
0:22:29 > 0:22:31It looks as though we're looking through water.
0:22:31 > 0:22:34And the stem is refracted through that water.
0:22:34 > 0:22:37But actually, this is solid rock crystal.
0:22:37 > 0:22:40How amazing. It's the goldsmith working in defiance of time decay.
0:22:40 > 0:22:43He's made the lily of the valley last for ever.
0:22:43 > 0:22:48- Exactly, yes.- And I recognise this middle one because I go out picking
0:22:48 > 0:22:51rowan berries, they make very good jelly.
0:22:51 > 0:22:54Very good with a bit of beef or a bit of venison.
0:22:54 > 0:22:56But that is fantastic.
0:22:56 > 0:22:58I think what's so interesting about
0:22:58 > 0:23:00these, they're trying so hard to be entirely naturalistic,
0:23:00 > 0:23:04so you can see, if you look closely, that the berries, in certain cases,
0:23:04 > 0:23:06there's a slight variation in the tone.
0:23:06 > 0:23:09Some of them are dark, they're starting to shrivel,
0:23:09 > 0:23:12but of course he still wants us to remember that these are made of
0:23:12 > 0:23:15solid materials. This is nephrite, it's wafer-thin.
0:23:15 > 0:23:18- This is stone. - This is stone. And this is gold.
0:23:18 > 0:23:20I'm going to repeat that.
0:23:20 > 0:23:25This is stone. He's even understood the way in which the rowan's leaves
0:23:25 > 0:23:27are shiny on the front.
0:23:27 > 0:23:30- Exactly.- But they're not shiny on the back.- No, they're dull.- They've got this
0:23:30 > 0:23:33- slight dullness. And that must be deliberate, all deliberate.- Oh, completely.
0:23:33 > 0:23:35They're not as famous as Faberge's eggs but I think
0:23:35 > 0:23:39they're every bit as special, perhaps even more miraculous.
0:23:42 > 0:23:45Alexandra's passion for Faberge was contagious.
0:23:45 > 0:23:49Her children and husband Edward VII were also collectors.
0:23:50 > 0:23:54And the astute Faberge opened a branch in London to capitalise on
0:23:54 > 0:23:58his royal clientele.
0:23:58 > 0:24:02And in 1907, Faberge took an order from the King for a menagerie of
0:24:02 > 0:24:05sculptures based on the animals at Sandringham.
0:24:08 > 0:24:09Queen Alexandra loved the animals.
0:24:09 > 0:24:12She just enjoyed their charm and their whimsical nature.
0:24:12 > 0:24:13They have real personality.
0:24:13 > 0:24:17Like this dormouse carved from a beautiful piece of agate.
0:24:17 > 0:24:21His eyes are made of little cabochon sapphires.
0:24:21 > 0:24:25He's got platinum whiskers and he's actually chewing on gold straws.
0:24:25 > 0:24:29A dormouse with cabochon sapphire eyes.
0:24:29 > 0:24:30Eating gold.
0:24:30 > 0:24:32Platinum whiskers.
0:24:32 > 0:24:34He's the king of the dormouse world.
0:24:34 > 0:24:36You can see why Queen Alexandra liked these,
0:24:36 > 0:24:39and she would keep them in two cabinets
0:24:39 > 0:24:41entirely designed for her Faberge collection
0:24:41 > 0:24:43in the drawing room at Sandringham House.
0:24:43 > 0:24:46And these would be specially lit up with electric light, every evening,
0:24:46 > 0:24:49so that the house guests of the King and Queen could see and admire this
0:24:49 > 0:24:51- collection.- But I suppose, in a way,
0:24:51 > 0:24:55there's always a slight hint of melancholy when one looks at these
0:24:55 > 0:24:56objects because they're all, really,
0:24:56 > 0:24:59just before, or a lot of them, just before the First World War.
0:24:59 > 0:25:01The peace before the fall.
0:25:01 > 0:25:05Yes. It's a last sort of great flowering of this sort of slightly
0:25:05 > 0:25:08frivolous tradition.
0:25:08 > 0:25:13Neither the Russian Imperial family nor the Faberge firm would survive
0:25:13 > 0:25:16the wars and revolutions now hurtling over the horizon.
0:25:19 > 0:25:23One reason that the British monarchy endured is that under the new King,
0:25:23 > 0:25:27Alexandra's son, George V, they dramatically changed course.
0:25:30 > 0:25:33During the First World War, the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha
0:25:33 > 0:25:35dynasty changed their name
0:25:35 > 0:25:39to the almost suburban-sounding House of Windsor.
0:25:39 > 0:25:42From now on, the British monarchy would be practical,
0:25:42 > 0:25:45down-to-earth, on hand to help.
0:25:47 > 0:25:51Much of this transformation can be traced to George V's wife,
0:25:51 > 0:25:53the indomitable Queen Mary.
0:25:55 > 0:26:00Within days of war being declared, Mary was commandeering thousands of
0:26:00 > 0:26:03volunteers from her needlework guild to create socks,
0:26:03 > 0:26:06belts and shirts for the troops.
0:26:06 > 0:26:08And here in St James's Palace,
0:26:08 > 0:26:13the vast state apartments were commandeered as a depot for poor relief.
0:26:14 > 0:26:19And then there were the hospital visits during which Mary, in particular,
0:26:19 > 0:26:24insisted on spending time with the most-injured soldiers.
0:26:24 > 0:26:29The normally phlegmatic George admitted that he found the whole
0:26:29 > 0:26:32experience deeply distressing but duty had to be done.
0:26:40 > 0:26:44One of the great treasures of the modern Royal Collection was made in
0:26:44 > 0:26:50part to thank the Queen for this service and steadfastness during the Great War.
0:26:50 > 0:26:53A new royal resident for a new age.
0:26:55 > 0:26:59Such was the affection for Queen Mary
0:26:59 > 0:27:02that when Princess Marie-Louise,
0:27:02 > 0:27:06her childhood friend, suggested that as a gesture of thanks,
0:27:06 > 0:27:08a great doll's house should be
0:27:08 > 0:27:11created and presented as a gift to Mary,
0:27:11 > 0:27:15the response was overwhelming.
0:27:15 > 0:27:20More than 1,000 people, something like 1,500 different people,
0:27:20 > 0:27:24and companies, collaborated to create the interior.
0:27:24 > 0:27:30Door-makers, marble cutters, painters, writers.
0:27:32 > 0:27:36Architect Sir Edwin Lutyens created a miniature royal townhouse
0:27:36 > 0:27:39complete in every detail.
0:27:39 > 0:27:43As a result, it's almost a three-dimensional archive of British
0:27:43 > 0:27:46craftsmanship in the 1920s.
0:27:48 > 0:27:54Everything in it might be small but it's as real as it possibly can be.
0:27:54 > 0:27:57So, for example, the shotguns.
0:27:57 > 0:28:02Even though they're only that long, they could be broken,
0:28:02 > 0:28:05loaded and fired.
0:28:05 > 0:28:09There's real champagne in those champagne bottles.
0:28:10 > 0:28:15And the library is really something special.
0:28:15 > 0:28:17Just look at the desks.
0:28:17 > 0:28:19You've got miniature,
0:28:19 > 0:28:23perfectly readable copies of the newspapers.
0:28:23 > 0:28:27But the books themselves are the real wonder of this library because
0:28:27 > 0:28:32each one is a proper miniature book.
0:28:32 > 0:28:39And lots of them were created specially by the leading authors of the day.
0:28:39 > 0:28:45So, Arthur Conan Doyle wrote a new Sherlock Holmes story.
0:28:45 > 0:28:48It really is something absolutely fantastic.
0:28:48 > 0:28:52Queen Elizabeth over the central fireplace.
0:28:52 > 0:28:56Henry VIII, lurking in the wings.
0:29:00 > 0:29:06So what significance should we find in this extraordinary object?
0:29:06 > 0:29:09What does it symbolise? What does it mean?
0:29:09 > 0:29:16Well, I think the easy answer is to say that it's the perfect emblem of
0:29:16 > 0:29:19the modern monarchy, so reduced in its powers,
0:29:19 > 0:29:22so reduced in its ambitions.
0:29:22 > 0:29:23After all, once upon a time,
0:29:23 > 0:29:27great palaces were brought into being to serve the monarch.
0:29:27 > 0:29:29Great paintings by van Dyck or by Holbein,
0:29:29 > 0:29:33were created to glorify king or queen.
0:29:33 > 0:29:35Now...
0:29:35 > 0:29:38..it's just a doll's house,
0:29:38 > 0:29:42and the paintings it contains the size of postage stamps.
0:29:42 > 0:29:46Everything shrunk to the scale of Lilliput.
0:29:48 > 0:29:53But this doll's house is also the perfect emblem for Mary herself.
0:29:54 > 0:29:57She was a queen who delighted in the miniature.
0:29:57 > 0:30:01She adored little things, and she liked having a lot of them.
0:30:02 > 0:30:05Born into minor European royalty,
0:30:05 > 0:30:08she attributed her love of art to her father, the Duke of Teck.
0:30:10 > 0:30:14He'd been on the edge of bankruptcy and had never been able to collect.
0:30:15 > 0:30:18His daughter, once she was queen, could,
0:30:18 > 0:30:22and she earned a reputation as a royal magpie,
0:30:22 > 0:30:23swooping in and snaffling up
0:30:23 > 0:30:26bargains around the antique shops of Mayfair.
0:30:27 > 0:30:31She makes a cameo appearance in Mrs Dalloway,
0:30:31 > 0:30:34Virginia Woolf's novel of London in the 1920s.
0:30:35 > 0:30:40A car containing a person of very great importance is seen drawing up
0:30:40 > 0:30:42to a shop.
0:30:42 > 0:30:46"Yet rumours were at once in circulation from the middle of Bond Street to
0:30:46 > 0:30:52"Oxford Street, passing invisibly, inaudibly, like a cloud.
0:30:52 > 0:30:54"Was it the Queen in there?
0:30:54 > 0:30:56"The Queen going shopping?"
0:30:58 > 0:31:01In keeping with the monarchy's new sober image,
0:31:01 > 0:31:04Queen Mary's tastes were discreet, neat and sweet,
0:31:04 > 0:31:08and her acquisitions are sprinkled around the royal palaces like
0:31:08 > 0:31:10sugar crystals.
0:31:10 > 0:31:14She was fascinated with intricate craftsmanship and became a
0:31:14 > 0:31:17self-taught expert on Asian decorative arts.
0:31:18 > 0:31:22A cabinet in a tucked-away anteroom at Buckingham Palace is filled with
0:31:22 > 0:31:25her collection of jade.
0:31:25 > 0:31:31And just look at this nephrite brush rest, carved like a canal bridge.
0:31:32 > 0:31:37She had ancestors in the British Royal family and sometimes bought things
0:31:37 > 0:31:38they'd once owned.
0:31:38 > 0:31:42Mary, Queen of Scots's pomander, a Tudor air freshener.
0:31:44 > 0:31:48Or a Maundy purse of Queen Anne's.
0:31:51 > 0:31:55The best place to see Mary's collection is Frogmore House.
0:31:55 > 0:31:57A mile from Windsor Castle,
0:31:57 > 0:32:00Frogmore has been in royal hands for three centuries.
0:32:03 > 0:32:07Some of the rooms are still filled with Mary's collections and are being
0:32:07 > 0:32:10studied by Royal Collection Trust's Kathryn Jones.
0:32:12 > 0:32:15So this is very much Queen Mary's collection,
0:32:15 > 0:32:18and this is where she kept it most privately,
0:32:18 > 0:32:20so it's very much in her style.
0:32:20 > 0:32:23You can see this room, actually, is amazing.
0:32:23 > 0:32:26It glories in the name of the Black Museum, and you can see why.
0:32:26 > 0:32:29She's gathered together all her particular interests in lacquer and
0:32:29 > 0:32:32papier-mache and brought it all together in one place,
0:32:32 > 0:32:36- and that's very much Queen Mary's style, putting like with like.- Yeah.
0:32:36 > 0:32:39And I think, particularly, objects that have a royal connotation,
0:32:39 > 0:32:41particularly to do with royal history.
0:32:41 > 0:32:45She is very keen to fill in any gaps that might be missing.
0:32:45 > 0:32:46For example, this object here,
0:32:46 > 0:32:51which has a lovely view of old Balmoral before Prince Albert
0:32:51 > 0:32:55redesigned it, I'm sure...part of the reason she wanted to acquire it was because
0:32:55 > 0:32:57it had that depiction on it.
0:32:57 > 0:33:01Oh, I see, "We can never revisit old Balmoral, because Albert changed it,
0:33:01 > 0:33:05- "but we can, in the form of looking at this box."- Exactly.
0:33:05 > 0:33:09Do you think there's an element of making up for her childhood, you know,
0:33:09 > 0:33:12as the daughter of a rather
0:33:12 > 0:33:15down-on-his-luck aristocrat, she's been moved around a lot,
0:33:15 > 0:33:17almost never able
0:33:17 > 0:33:20to feel that she was at home, or to collect things around herself?
0:33:20 > 0:33:23Do you think there's an element of sort of almost psychological
0:33:23 > 0:33:26- compensation about this? - Yeah, absolutely, definitely.
0:33:26 > 0:33:30I think that she is very keen to list every single object that comes
0:33:30 > 0:33:33into her collection, and she also leaves notes with everything,
0:33:33 > 0:33:36and I can show you quite a good example of...
0:33:36 > 0:33:39So she doesn't want just to have it, she wants to know that she's got it,
0:33:39 > 0:33:42- and she wants to know where it is. - And where it's come from.
0:33:42 > 0:33:45And this is in her own handwriting, you can see she's labelled it,
0:33:45 > 0:33:49"For the Frogmore collection," where it's come from, even the date,
0:33:49 > 0:33:53so that in future, people will know exactly what this object is.
0:33:53 > 0:33:57And she's written on the back of the Windsor Castle note card,
0:33:57 > 0:33:59"Old Balmoral Castle."
0:33:59 > 0:34:01Exactly, although it may seem difficult to believe,
0:34:01 > 0:34:04there is actually an element of thrift to her acquisitions.
0:34:04 > 0:34:06She buys a lot at auction,
0:34:06 > 0:34:10and we know from her correspondence that when it goes above a certain
0:34:10 > 0:34:13price, she will drop out and not acquire it,
0:34:13 > 0:34:16and you can sense her disappointment sometimes when she's lost a lot that
0:34:16 > 0:34:18she was very keen to acquire.
0:34:18 > 0:34:22But she knows that she's on a budget and she's not going to exceed that.
0:34:22 > 0:34:27My own view is that it's conspicuously modest consumption.
0:34:27 > 0:34:30Yes. And she called herself and George V...
0:34:30 > 0:34:34.."Darby and Joan". I mean, that sort of classic domestic monarchy,
0:34:34 > 0:34:36as it were. So I think, you know,
0:34:36 > 0:34:39that very much sums up what she's trying to do.
0:34:41 > 0:34:45George V didn't share his wife's passion for art.
0:34:45 > 0:34:47But at the very end of his reign,
0:34:47 > 0:34:51he made a dramatic intervention that would have far-reaching consequences
0:34:51 > 0:34:53for the Royal Collection.
0:34:55 > 0:34:59Its 7,000 paintings were in dire need of some TLC.
0:35:04 > 0:35:06So a request went out to Kenneth Clark,
0:35:06 > 0:35:09the wunderkind director of the National Gallery,
0:35:09 > 0:35:13to take a second job as Surveyor of the King's Pictures.
0:35:17 > 0:35:21When Clark turned the post down, George V angrily confronted him.
0:35:24 > 0:35:26"Why won't you take the job?"
0:35:26 > 0:35:28"Because, sir, I don't think I'll have the time to do it."
0:35:28 > 0:35:31"Why not?!" "Well, sir, the pictures -
0:35:31 > 0:35:33"the pictures will need attention."
0:35:34 > 0:35:36"Nothing wrong with the pictures!
0:35:36 > 0:35:39What else?"
0:35:39 > 0:35:43"Public letters, people want information about the paintings.
0:35:43 > 0:35:46"I'll have to reply to them." "Don't answer them!"
0:35:46 > 0:35:50Now, whether Clark entirely believed the King about the condition of the
0:35:50 > 0:35:55pictures and whether he entirely felt it appropriate not to answer letters
0:35:55 > 0:36:00from the public, this was still the kind of offer you can't refuse.
0:36:00 > 0:36:02He took the job.
0:36:06 > 0:36:08Contrary to what the King had said,
0:36:08 > 0:36:12Clark wrote that the collection had been "very much let down" in the
0:36:12 > 0:36:16last 100 years and initiated a comprehensive programme
0:36:16 > 0:36:18of cleaning and conservation.
0:36:20 > 0:36:25He was just getting going when George VI came to the throne in 1936.
0:36:27 > 0:36:30The new queen consort was Queen Elizabeth,
0:36:30 > 0:36:33remembered latterly as the Queen Mother.
0:36:35 > 0:36:38Clark encouraged her interest in art,
0:36:38 > 0:36:41helping to turn her into the most daring royal collector
0:36:41 > 0:36:44of the 20th century.
0:36:46 > 0:36:49When you visit her home, Clarence House,
0:36:49 > 0:36:53you can see that Queen Elizabeth was quietly radical in her tastes,
0:36:53 > 0:36:57building up a rather surprising collection of contemporary British art.
0:37:01 > 0:37:05Over here, we've got her first serious acquisition,
0:37:05 > 0:37:10a picture called When Homer Nods by Augustus John.
0:37:10 > 0:37:14I think it's a bit of a tease. It's actually a portrait of George Bernard Shaw,
0:37:14 > 0:37:16who was hardly Homer.
0:37:16 > 0:37:20And I think the point was that George Bernard Shaw talked so much,
0:37:20 > 0:37:23you could only get a portrait of him when he fell asleep,
0:37:23 > 0:37:26and that's what Augustus John has done.
0:37:26 > 0:37:28He's waited for him to nod off.
0:37:28 > 0:37:33Below, you've got Duncan Grant, a member of the Bloomsbury Group.
0:37:33 > 0:37:38On this side, a small landscape by Lowry, painted in the mid-1940s.
0:37:39 > 0:37:42And above, a very daring acquisition,
0:37:42 > 0:37:48an extremely informal portrait of her father-in-law, George V,
0:37:48 > 0:37:51with his racing manager, painted by, for me,
0:37:51 > 0:37:55the greatest British artist of the first half of the 20th century -
0:37:55 > 0:37:57Walter Richard Sickert.
0:37:57 > 0:38:01It's one of the pictures that he painted later in life, based on
0:38:01 > 0:38:05press photographs. Extremely avant-garde, very informal.
0:38:05 > 0:38:08Over the mantelpiece,
0:38:08 > 0:38:09another painting by Sickert,
0:38:09 > 0:38:12and it shows two characters at a
0:38:12 > 0:38:14fancy dress ball.
0:38:14 > 0:38:17It was almost certainly painted on
0:38:17 > 0:38:20the basis of an illustration in a
0:38:20 > 0:38:25magazine. This is Sickert pushing almost towards Andy Warhol.
0:38:26 > 0:38:31It's only in relatively recent years that Sickert's later pictures have come
0:38:31 > 0:38:33into critical favour and changed hands for a lot of money,
0:38:33 > 0:38:37so she was really ahead of her time in buying that work of art.
0:38:37 > 0:38:39In fact, such was her interest in
0:38:39 > 0:38:43cutting-edge British art that it caught
0:38:43 > 0:38:46the public imagination. The Times ran a leader saying,
0:38:46 > 0:38:50"The Queen has decided that contemporary British art matters."
0:38:53 > 0:38:57George VI's reign is defined by the Second World War,
0:38:57 > 0:38:59and those traumatic years are
0:38:59 > 0:39:01writ large in the works the Queen collected.
0:39:03 > 0:39:09The Landscape Of The Vernal Equinox by Paul Nash, of 1943 -
0:39:09 > 0:39:13an avant-garde vision of what Britain was fighting for.
0:39:15 > 0:39:19Buckingham Palace was bombed in September 1940.
0:39:20 > 0:39:22Queen Elizabeth was defiant.
0:39:22 > 0:39:25"Now I can look the East End in the face," she said.
0:39:27 > 0:39:30After that, the family would overnight at Windsor Castle,
0:39:30 > 0:39:32returning to London during the day.
0:39:34 > 0:39:37But Windsor itself was under threat.
0:39:37 > 0:39:40In fact, in November 1940,
0:39:40 > 0:39:45night-watchers on the battlements here saw a stream of German planes
0:39:45 > 0:39:47passing overhead.
0:39:47 > 0:39:50The castle was under threat.
0:39:50 > 0:39:53There was a real danger it might be damaged or destroyed.
0:39:56 > 0:40:00The Queen decided that she would preserve the castle for ever - on paper.
0:40:02 > 0:40:07She commissioned the artist John Piper to record "Fortress Windsor"
0:40:07 > 0:40:10at its darkest hour.
0:40:11 > 0:40:13In September 1941,
0:40:13 > 0:40:17Piper was let in and given freedom to roam wherever he wanted.
0:40:21 > 0:40:25Pretty soon, he began ascending towers.
0:40:25 > 0:40:28He was after vantage points, views.
0:40:28 > 0:40:33And it was quite a daredevil task, as the winter was coming in,
0:40:33 > 0:40:37but even five inches of January snow didn't put him off.
0:40:37 > 0:40:39Now, one of the first places he came to was here,
0:40:39 > 0:40:43the roof of medieval St George's Chapel,
0:40:43 > 0:40:49and this was the view that he chose to paint the great Round Tower of
0:40:49 > 0:40:55the castle, framed by a perspective of Gothic turrets and medieval roof.
0:41:00 > 0:41:04This is the most ambitious royal commission of the 20th century.
0:41:06 > 0:41:11The Queen Mother hung the entire set of 26 images at Clarence House,
0:41:11 > 0:41:14where they still possess a mesmerising power.
0:41:16 > 0:41:22The overwhelming impression, for me, is one of foreboding -
0:41:22 > 0:41:25a palpable sense of threat.
0:41:25 > 0:41:30Yes, Piper has captured the monumentality of Windsor Castle,
0:41:30 > 0:41:36but he's hardly depicted it as a citadel that can never be stormed.
0:41:36 > 0:41:41You can feel his anxiety trembling in the air.
0:41:41 > 0:41:43And look at the way he's depicted the castle,
0:41:43 > 0:41:48as a series of depopulated precincts.
0:41:48 > 0:41:51There's hardly a figure to be seen in these images.
0:41:51 > 0:41:57It's almost as if a little bit of surrealism has worked its way into
0:41:57 > 0:41:59his blood.
0:41:59 > 0:42:02My favourite remark - I think it was tongue-in-cheek -
0:42:02 > 0:42:07was made by George VI himself, who said, "Gosh,
0:42:07 > 0:42:11"you've had terribly bad luck with the weather, haven't you, dear chap?"
0:42:11 > 0:42:14Of course, he knew perfectly well the trouble wasn't with the real
0:42:14 > 0:42:19weather, but the weather of the national psyche -
0:42:19 > 0:42:21the stormy mentality of siege.
0:42:26 > 0:42:30George VI and Elizabeth had seen the nation through the war,
0:42:30 > 0:42:33but it was their daughter, Queen Elizabeth II,
0:42:33 > 0:42:36who'd see Britain through the peace.
0:42:36 > 0:42:40She was destined to be the most photographed woman in the world,
0:42:40 > 0:42:43and the first photographer to capture her as queen was a woman,
0:42:43 > 0:42:46society portraitist Dorothy Wilding.
0:42:51 > 0:42:56In 59 images, using high-key lighting and a plain background,
0:42:56 > 0:42:59Wilding invented a new look for a new queen,
0:42:59 > 0:43:03perfectly poised between glamour and modesty.
0:43:05 > 0:43:07Handwritten comments on the proofs
0:43:07 > 0:43:09tell us where these images were going -
0:43:09 > 0:43:12embassies, banknotes and stamps.
0:43:14 > 0:43:18Wilding's stamps, miniatures for a new Elizabethan age,
0:43:18 > 0:43:21were in circulation till the 1970s.
0:43:24 > 0:43:28Elizabeth II inherited a collection that was still looked on as a
0:43:28 > 0:43:31private royal domain.
0:43:31 > 0:43:37In 1962, this began to change, with the opening of the Queen's Gallery.
0:43:39 > 0:43:41Placed at the side of Buckingham Palace,
0:43:41 > 0:43:44the gallery was the brainchild of Prince Philip.
0:43:46 > 0:43:48Expanded in the 21st century,
0:43:48 > 0:43:53it's now a chance for anyone to see the collection's masterpieces
0:43:53 > 0:43:55up close - as art, not palace decor.
0:43:57 > 0:44:03In this space, in this wonderful suite of galleries, you can,
0:44:03 > 0:44:06pretty much any day of the year, come and see a wonderful,
0:44:06 > 0:44:10permanently rotating series of exhibitions.
0:44:10 > 0:44:15At the moment, it's Canaletto. Next month, it might be Rubens.
0:44:15 > 0:44:18Next year, it might be Leonardo da Vinci's drawings.
0:44:18 > 0:44:23In fact, I would say that the opening of the Queen's Gallery in 1962
0:44:23 > 0:44:28really marked a profound shift in orientation from
0:44:28 > 0:44:32the Royal Collection, and ever since that time, its face has turned more
0:44:32 > 0:44:36and more and more towards the general public.
0:44:36 > 0:44:40I think that's been the direction of travel during Elizabeth II's reign.
0:44:44 > 0:44:49Out in the main palaces, the focus was on displaying the royal treasures.
0:44:49 > 0:44:52The public areas of Hampton Court and Windsor Castle
0:44:52 > 0:44:54were comprehensively rearranged.
0:44:57 > 0:45:00This was an era that was conservative in the literal sense,
0:45:00 > 0:45:02securing the existing collection.
0:45:05 > 0:45:09The days when royalty splashed out on big statement works of art
0:45:09 > 0:45:12were long gone.
0:45:12 > 0:45:14For her measured purchases,
0:45:14 > 0:45:17the Queen often depended on the advice of her surveyors,
0:45:17 > 0:45:19who steered her toward works with a link to the monarchy.
0:45:21 > 0:45:24Blanchet's portrait of the Young Pretender.
0:45:25 > 0:45:29This oil sketch by van Dyck, for one of the collection's treasures.
0:45:30 > 0:45:34But it was the Queen herself who made the final decision,
0:45:34 > 0:45:38as with the revival of a rather wonderful portrait series of people
0:45:38 > 0:45:40who've made outstanding contributions to public life.
0:45:42 > 0:45:45With Royal Collection Trust's Rosie Razzall,
0:45:45 > 0:45:48I'm meeting members of the prestigious Order of Merit.
0:45:49 > 0:45:52The tradition of commissioning portraits of members of the Order of Merit
0:45:52 > 0:45:55fell into abeyance with the outbreak of the First World War,
0:45:55 > 0:45:59but it was revived again in 1987, revived by the Queen,
0:45:59 > 0:46:01and the tradition has continued ever since.
0:46:01 > 0:46:05That's fantastic. The Queen herself wanted to revive having them
0:46:05 > 0:46:07- portrayed.- Yes, absolutely,
0:46:07 > 0:46:11and each of the portraits will be approved by the Queen personally.
0:46:11 > 0:46:14I'll tell you what it makes me think of, the National Portrait Gallery.
0:46:14 > 0:46:17It's almost as if there is another National Portrait Gallery now,
0:46:17 > 0:46:19but it's within the Royal Collection,
0:46:19 > 0:46:22and it's just of this very select group of individuals.
0:46:22 > 0:46:26The Graham Greene is a really good portrait, isn't it?
0:46:26 > 0:46:29- Yeah, it's full of character. - I think he's just had his lunch, he's a little bit drunk,
0:46:29 > 0:46:32and he's not in a very good mood, he doesn't want to sit for Humphrey Ocean,
0:46:32 > 0:46:34but that is all very Graham Greene, isn't it?
0:46:34 > 0:46:37- This is just pencil, is it? - It's just pencil.- A bit of smudging going on.
0:46:37 > 0:46:40Yeah. He has erased some areas.
0:46:40 > 0:46:42That ear is really good, as well - that's a right specimen!
0:46:45 > 0:46:48It's a series that continues into the present.
0:46:48 > 0:46:50David Hockney submitted his own
0:46:50 > 0:46:53self-portrait, made with an iPad.
0:46:53 > 0:46:55And here's Ben Sullivan's even more
0:46:55 > 0:46:58recent depiction of the engineer Ann Dowling.
0:46:58 > 0:47:00It's like a scientific drawing.
0:47:00 > 0:47:02It's very precise and almost photographic.
0:47:03 > 0:47:07You almost can imagine a bell jar being placed over her,
0:47:07 > 0:47:11and she'd be left there for ever as an exhibit.
0:47:15 > 0:47:19Elizabeth II's stewardship of the Royal Collection might well have
0:47:19 > 0:47:21carried on at its steady pace.
0:47:21 > 0:47:26But when disaster struck Windsor Castle in the early 1990s,
0:47:26 > 0:47:30everything changed.
0:47:30 > 0:47:34In 1992, this space was the Queen's private chapel.
0:47:34 > 0:47:37On this wall, its altar,
0:47:37 > 0:47:42framed by two very high floor-to-ceiling curtains.
0:47:42 > 0:47:44Now, unknown to anybody,
0:47:44 > 0:47:48a spotlight had been placed fractionally too close to one of
0:47:48 > 0:47:53those curtains, and over the months, it had dried the material to the point where
0:47:53 > 0:47:55it had become like tinder.
0:47:55 > 0:48:00Then, on the morning of the 20th of November, 11.15am,
0:48:00 > 0:48:02a group of conservators were here
0:48:02 > 0:48:06looking after some pictures that had been temporarily stored in the room,
0:48:06 > 0:48:08when they smelt burning.
0:48:08 > 0:48:10They investigated, could find nothing,
0:48:10 > 0:48:16but within two minutes they saw flames from the top of that curtain.
0:48:17 > 0:48:20They ran to get help, but by the time the fire crews arrived,
0:48:20 > 0:48:22the building was already ablaze.
0:48:29 > 0:48:33For 15 hours, more than 200 firefighters fought the flames.
0:48:36 > 0:48:38A rescue operation began immediately.
0:48:41 > 0:48:43By an astonishing stroke of luck,
0:48:43 > 0:48:47most of the objects from the burned rooms were already in store
0:48:47 > 0:48:49because of restoration work,
0:48:49 > 0:48:53and very little from the Royal Collection was actually lost.
0:48:54 > 0:48:58But significant parts of the historic fabric of the castle were destroyed.
0:49:02 > 0:49:05Restoration isn't cheap.
0:49:05 > 0:49:07In fact, it cost £37 million.
0:49:09 > 0:49:11Debate raged. Who was going to pay?
0:49:13 > 0:49:17The Queen agreed that there would be no additional cost to the taxpayer.
0:49:19 > 0:49:21So with the castle under repair,
0:49:21 > 0:49:26Buckingham Palace was opened during the summer for the first time, to raise money.
0:49:26 > 0:49:29But this additional cash didn't just go to repairing Windsor.
0:49:29 > 0:49:31From 1993,
0:49:31 > 0:49:35income from visitor admissions went to a new charitable trust
0:49:35 > 0:49:38tasked with looking after the collection.
0:49:38 > 0:49:41Its director is Jonathan Marsden.
0:49:42 > 0:49:47The creation of the charitable trust in 1993, has meant that all the
0:49:47 > 0:49:49revenues from the visitors to
0:49:49 > 0:49:51Windsor and the Queen's other
0:49:51 > 0:49:54official residences are put into this trust,
0:49:54 > 0:50:00which then spends the money on all the things that help preserve and
0:50:00 > 0:50:02present the collection as widely as possible.
0:50:02 > 0:50:04So it's those people,
0:50:04 > 0:50:09they actually pay for everything that you and the staff do.
0:50:09 > 0:50:12That's right. You know, we have got now what are really now museum-scale
0:50:12 > 0:50:14conservation teams, publishing teams,
0:50:14 > 0:50:17all the disciplines you would expect to find in a large museum,
0:50:17 > 0:50:20which simply didn't exist in-house 25 years ago.
0:50:21 > 0:50:27How would you say it's altered the way the Royal Collection is thought of,
0:50:27 > 0:50:30the way it's run, its day-to-day existence?
0:50:30 > 0:50:35We've kind of begun to apply a sort of quasi-museum approach to it.
0:50:35 > 0:50:38It isn't a museum, none of these palaces are museums,
0:50:38 > 0:50:43but we've tried to classify the collection, to record it in a museum-y way,
0:50:43 > 0:50:45and present it in that way.
0:50:45 > 0:50:50But it is every single thing in every palace. That is the collection.
0:50:52 > 0:50:55Buckingham Palace is still packed every summer.
0:50:55 > 0:51:00What started as a stopgap cash raiser has created one of the most
0:51:00 > 0:51:03popular tourist attractions in all of Britain.
0:51:05 > 0:51:07All this is great PR for brand monarchy,
0:51:07 > 0:51:12but it also helps to fund a royal art empire of galleries and
0:51:12 > 0:51:15conservation studios for painting and the decorative arts.
0:51:17 > 0:51:21For the last century-and-a-half, royal collectors, mostly women,
0:51:21 > 0:51:25have turned to art at moments of adversity or threat.
0:51:25 > 0:51:30But who could have predicted that a queen known for her love of racehorses
0:51:30 > 0:51:35would urge the Royal Collection over one of the stiffest obstacles
0:51:35 > 0:51:37it's ever had to face?
0:51:37 > 0:51:41But has there been a loss alongside the gains?
0:51:41 > 0:51:45With the modern focus on conservation and display,
0:51:45 > 0:51:50rather than acquisition, has royal patronage become a thing of the past?
0:51:57 > 0:52:00After spending a year studying royal collectors,
0:52:00 > 0:52:02I'm finally about to meet one.
0:52:02 > 0:52:04- Oh, look.- Good morning, Your Royal Highness.
0:52:04 > 0:52:06- Very good to see you.- Very good to see you.
0:52:08 > 0:52:11These are works from two portrait series commissioned by the Prince of
0:52:11 > 0:52:15Wales - The Last Of The Few,
0:52:15 > 0:52:18immortalising heroes from the Battle of Britain,
0:52:18 > 0:52:20commissioned in 2010,
0:52:20 > 0:52:25and The Last Of The Tide, veterans of the D-Day campaign,
0:52:25 > 0:52:29commissioned four years later.
0:52:29 > 0:52:31When my grandmother died,
0:52:31 > 0:52:34I succeeded her as patron of the Battle of Britain,
0:52:34 > 0:52:38you know, fighter pilots and, erm...
0:52:38 > 0:52:40..so I used to have them to receptions,
0:52:40 > 0:52:44and we gave them an annual tea party and things like that.
0:52:44 > 0:52:45And so I knew them all,
0:52:45 > 0:52:49it just seemed to me absolutely crucial to try and capture some of
0:52:49 > 0:52:52them before they disappeared.
0:52:52 > 0:52:53What a character this chap is!
0:52:53 > 0:52:57He was such a dear man, I can't tell you.
0:52:57 > 0:52:58He really was.
0:52:58 > 0:53:02It seems to me that one gets so much more of a character from a drawing
0:53:02 > 0:53:05- like this than one would ever get from a photograph.- Yes, yes.
0:53:05 > 0:53:09Well, I think, also, because the artist, if they're a really good artist,
0:53:09 > 0:53:11has an ability to see through,
0:53:11 > 0:53:15you know, the outer layer and into the inner layer.
0:53:15 > 0:53:18- Yeah.- That is the fascinating thing about artists, I think,
0:53:18 > 0:53:20is how they capture the spirit,
0:53:20 > 0:53:24or how they see you as a character.
0:53:24 > 0:53:27It seems to me that what he's depicted here so brilliantly is
0:53:27 > 0:53:31still the presence of a very young man within the old body.
0:53:31 > 0:53:34That's still the young man who did do those heroic deeds.
0:53:34 > 0:53:37Yes. But that is what he was like. He was always laughing.
0:53:37 > 0:53:41So many different styles, I see. That's very different from, say, this,
0:53:41 > 0:53:43where we seem to be almost in
0:53:43 > 0:53:45the world of a modern Holbein.
0:53:45 > 0:53:48That's what I feel. I mean, when I saw it, I thought,
0:53:48 > 0:53:50having looked at those, I think
0:53:50 > 0:53:52magical, Holbein drawings, you know,
0:53:52 > 0:53:54in the Print Room at Windsor
0:53:54 > 0:53:55for so many years,
0:53:55 > 0:54:00it was in that sort of extraordinary tradition of economy of line,
0:54:00 > 0:54:02and just a little bit of colour,
0:54:02 > 0:54:05which is what Holbein did so brilliantly,
0:54:05 > 0:54:09I always thought. But you felt with Holbein, he never took the pencil off the paper.
0:54:09 > 0:54:13I don't think she did either, Ishbel Myerscough.
0:54:13 > 0:54:15I love all of this, the furrowed brow.
0:54:15 > 0:54:18He was another marvellous character!
0:54:18 > 0:54:21Now, these were the ones that
0:54:21 > 0:54:25I thought, again, that the D-Day veterans were all disappearing.
0:54:25 > 0:54:27I mean, this one was done by
0:54:27 > 0:54:29Professor Eileen Hogan,
0:54:29 > 0:54:31who I think is brilliant.
0:54:31 > 0:54:34Very interesting and unusual surface.
0:54:34 > 0:54:36- Isn't it?- What...?
0:54:36 > 0:54:39Well, she told me she uses oil
0:54:39 > 0:54:42paint, but also thin oil paint with wax.
0:54:42 > 0:54:45- Ah!- Do you see? She paints over the wax.
0:54:47 > 0:54:51She was wondering, in the end, how the conservationists would mend it,
0:54:51 > 0:54:55whether it's going to disintegrate or not, rather like Reynolds's ones,
0:54:55 > 0:54:59- I don't know.- Reynolds! He was a disintegrator!
0:54:59 > 0:55:01He tried all sorts of things, didn't he?
0:55:01 > 0:55:05Yes, I think they once found a tea bag lodged in a Reynolds'!
0:55:05 > 0:55:09I love this chap. I think he's got such a face.
0:55:09 > 0:55:11Tich. I just couldn't resist.
0:55:11 > 0:55:14He was absolutely wonderful!
0:55:14 > 0:55:17She really captured him.
0:55:17 > 0:55:18It's astonishing.
0:55:18 > 0:55:21I wouldn't have wanted to bump into him on a dark night!
0:55:21 > 0:55:23I was going to say, on a dark night!
0:55:23 > 0:55:26I love the way she's done it with the medals slightly twisted.
0:55:27 > 0:55:29Leaping out of the canvas.
0:55:29 > 0:55:32He really is. It's not the eyes that follow you around the room,
0:55:32 > 0:55:35it's the whole person!
0:55:35 > 0:55:38We're here, under the gaze of Albert,
0:55:38 > 0:55:41and it strikes me very much as the kind of project that he would be giving the thumbs-up.
0:55:41 > 0:55:47I've learned quite a lot from my great-great-great-grandfather, in the sense of observing, because
0:55:47 > 0:55:52for instance, being brought up at Windsor Castle when I was young,
0:55:52 > 0:55:55peddling my car up and down the corridors,
0:55:55 > 0:55:57then suddenly, aged...
0:55:57 > 0:56:01Everything on the walls was rather a blur when you were small,
0:56:01 > 0:56:05but then suddenly, when I got to my teenage years, I suppose 13, 14,
0:56:05 > 0:56:10suddenly they came into focus, and I remember stopping to really look.
0:56:10 > 0:56:13It was a marvellous moment, really.
0:56:13 > 0:56:18I just think it's important to keep the collection going in each
0:56:18 > 0:56:21generation. And also, if you look at it...
0:56:22 > 0:56:27..over all these hundreds of years, on the whole it's been the interests,
0:56:27 > 0:56:30the personal interests of whoever it is, you know,
0:56:30 > 0:56:35either the sovereign or the Prince of Wales, that has influenced the collection.
0:56:35 > 0:56:38So some are more interested than others,
0:56:38 > 0:56:44some preferred to have more of their friends or, you know,
0:56:44 > 0:56:48relations or horses, dogs, carriages, you know,
0:56:48 > 0:56:50occasional Cabinet ministers.
0:56:50 > 0:56:53But that is what makes it, I think, to me, so interesting,
0:56:53 > 0:56:56because it isn't just something that's trying to create a
0:56:56 > 0:57:00representative collection, which of course, all the big galleries do.
0:57:00 > 0:57:05- No.- But this is sort of personal foibles, really.
0:57:08 > 0:57:12For me, the great irony of the Royal Collection is that the
0:57:12 > 0:57:16British monarchy, synonymous with conservatism,
0:57:16 > 0:57:21should have built up a collection that's so eccentric, so out there.
0:57:22 > 0:57:27You can see Buckingham Palace as a box filled by different people's quirks -
0:57:27 > 0:57:29the whimsy of George IV...
0:57:30 > 0:57:33..the sensual canvasses collected by Charles I...
0:57:35 > 0:57:37..the diminutive, decorative arts of Queen Mary...
0:57:39 > 0:57:43..and the artistic romance of Victoria and Albert.
0:57:46 > 0:57:51You might almost see the whole of the Royal Collection as a wonderful
0:57:51 > 0:57:56argument in object form, conducted between different generations of the
0:57:56 > 0:58:00same family about what art might or might not be.
0:58:00 > 0:58:02But for all their differences,
0:58:02 > 0:58:07and despite the wonderfully British eccentricity of the Royal Collection,
0:58:07 > 0:58:13the irregularity of its shape, all one-million-plus objects of it,
0:58:13 > 0:58:14there is, I think,
0:58:14 > 0:58:22one thread running through it all, namely the belief that art -
0:58:22 > 0:58:27art! - should lie at the very centre of any civilised society.