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Palace exhibition reveals Victoria and Albert's passion for art
Louise Jury, Chief Arts Correspondent12 Mar 2010
The popular image of Queen Victoria as a sour-faced widow is to be shattered by a new exhibition which reveals her open-minded passion for art.
The queen was an avid collector and shared a love of painting with husband Prince Albert.
The show at the Queen's Gallery in Buckingham Palace displays for the first time more than 400 items which the couple bought for each other in an intimate insight into their life together.
The story of their shared enthusiasm has captured the imagination of another art-loving royal, Prince Charles, who hosted a private reception to launch the exhibition last night.
Jonathan Marsden, director designate of the Royal Collection, said: "They were unduly interested in art and it was their lifelong hobby. All of these things belonged to them and in bringing them together you get a sense of how central it was to their lives."
Artworks were the gift of choice between them for special occasions such as birthdays, with Victoria buying her husband 200 paintings during their two decades together and he purchasing 100 statues for her. "There is no predominant style, but everything is of the highest quality," Mr Marsden said.
The prince's tastes are arguably more sophisticated and his purchases include some of the finest works in the Royal Collection such as Duccio's Triptych, the first acknowledged work by the Sienese artist to enter an English collection.
But the queen's purchases reflected her love of parties and the theatre, which she attended up to 40 times a year. She was less priggish than her husband in her attitude to paintings of nudes which she was happy to give him.
Artist William Dyce recounted how his large mural of naked figures for Osborne House on the Isle of Wight rather shocked Prince Albert but not Victoria. "If any one of the two of them was a little bit uneasy about nudity in art, it was him," Mr Marsden said.
Victoria and Albert: Art and Love opens next Friday and runs until 31 October, with admission charge.
