The Art of Monarchy: Portraying royalty
Editor's note: To coincide with the Art of Monarchy, the Radio 4 blog is running a series of posts by the 's curators on different aspects of the collection. In the first post Kate Heard discusses the task of portraying royalty - PM.
Samuel William Reynolds: Portrait of George III.
Supplied by Royal Collection Trust / © HM Queen Elizabeth II 2012
Around 1806, the artist tentatively approached to ask if he could paint the King's portrait.
"Sit to you for a portrait?" replied the King angrily, "What, do you want to make a show of me?"
Making a show of the monarch, however, was exactly what artists were expected to do. In an age when the King was at the head of government, yet unseen by most of his subjects, pictures of him were eagerly sought. 's coronation portrait of the youthfully handsome George III, for example, survives in around a hundred copies, turned out by the artist's studio for £84 apiece to furnish noble houses, ambassadors' residences and town halls.
So in 1810, when the King suffered a recurrence of the illness which had caused a constitutional crisis in 1788-9, portraitists were presented with a problem. How did they present an elderly and unwell monarch who, it turned out, would not appear again in public? George III spent the last decade of his life in seclusion at Windsor Castle while his son George, Prince of Wales, ran the country as Prince Regent. But while George III was barely aware of his surroundings in his final years, the public was acutely conscious of the plight of its monarch. How should artists, facing a continuous demand for images, present a man who had become invisible?
Just as Ramsay had painted copies of his coronation portrait for 23 years, so some artists dealt with the problem by reproducing portraits of George III which had been taken before his last illness. In 1813, for example, the Archbishop of York commissioned to paint a version of a portrait taken 37 years earlier. While West used an existing image to belie the monarch's state of health, a brazen fabrication was produced by the publisher Edward Orme who a few weeks before the King's death issued a print showing him hunting in Windsor Great Park. Happily bouncing along on a horse, George III appears in the best of health. This image was not a reissue of an earlier print but an imaginative invention that sought to capitalise on popular nostalgia for a happier time.
Other artists catered to curiosity about the King's current appearance. Although George III did not sit for his portrait after 1809, the sculptor Matthew Wyatt appears to have seen him - perhaps while working at Windsor on a monument to the King's granddaughter - and made a brief sketch. Showing the monarch with long beard and long bedraggled hair, this was published in 1817 with the words "When we forget him may God forget us".
One artist who went to extraordinary lengths to ensure the veracity of his image was Samuel William Reynolds, whose print of George III is discussed in The Art of Monarchy.
In early January 1820, . But before publishing this, he arranged for it to be shown to the Prince Regent, whose comments are recorded on an impression in the British Museum. The Prince praised the print for its "good likeness", but noted that the hair and beard were shown too long. Reynolds amended the plate, and included an inscription noting that it had been issued with royal approval.
By the time the print was published, however, George III had died. This only intensified demand for portraits of the late King. By chance, Reynolds, who was rewarded for his loyalty with the post of Portrait Engraver to George IV, had published a well-timed memorial to the man who had become known as "The Father of his People".
Kate Heard is Curator of Prints and Drawings, The Royal Collection
- View more images and listen to the first programme in the Art of Monarchy series: Behind the Royal Image
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- Visit the Art of Monarchy website
Ö÷²¥´óÐã Arts Editor, Will Gompertz, visits Kew Palace to see a manipulated image of George III. The picture is one of the many items from the Royal Collection featured in Radio 4's series, The Art of Monarchy. In the series, Will Gompertz explores the long history of the Monarchy through the monarchs who have ruled these islands and the works of art they have acquired.
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