Royal Subject: Portraits of Queen Charlotte

Product Information

Painting by Nathaniel Dance, whole length standing with robes of state. Uppark (illus. D. Goodreau, Nathaniel Dance, exhibition catalogue, Kenwood, 1977, fig.8). Exhibited RA 1769 (31) with a companion piece of the King. Versions belong to the Prince of Hanover, and a three-quarter length version of the Queen alone was on the Munich art market 1931. After the onset of his permanent madness in 1811, GeorgeIII was placed under the guardianship of his wife in accordance with the Regency Bill of 1789. [6]

Like her husband, Queen Charlotte was also interested in books and her substantial library included many volumes on botany, literature and the theatre. In the early 1790s she acquired the Frogmore estate at Windsor which she and her daughters used increasingly as a rural retreat, particularly for botanical and artistic activity. Queen Charlotte commissioned Mary Moser, a founder member of the Royal Academy, to decorate the walls and ceiling at Frogmoremaking the house not just a female domain but one with links to some of the most important female artists and patrons in the eighteenth century. Unattributed pastel, resembling the Ramsay pattern of 1762. The Prince of Hanover. With a companion piece of the King.When this portrait was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1781, Sir Henry Bate-Dudley praised it as ‘the only happy likeness we ever saw pourtrayed of her Majesty’. Gainsborough had already received commissions from the King’s brothers but the exhibition of these major full lengths proved his pre-eminence as unofficial court painter, ‘the Apollo of the Palace’. A portrait of Prince William, painted in the same year, was followed by the set of 15 ovals of the royal family in 1782. She could not bring herself to visit him very often, due to his erratic behaviour and occasional violent reactions. It is believed she did not visit him again after June 1812. However, Charlotte remained supportive of her spouse as his illness worsened in old age. While her son, the Prince Regent, wielded the royal power, she was her spouse's legal guardian from 1811 until her death in 1818. Due to the extent of the King's illness he was incapable of knowing or understanding that she had died. [49] Queen Charlotte was played by Frances White in the 1979 television series Prince Regent, by Helen Mirren in the 1994 film The Madness of King George, [71] by Golda Rosheuvel in the 2020 Netflix original series Bridgerton, [72] and by India Amarteifio in Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story.

Painting by Nathaniel Dance, whole length in coronation robes with a distant view of Westminster Abbey. Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg (illus. B. Allen & L. Dukelskaya eds., British Art Treasures from Russian Imperial Collections in the Hermitage, 1997, p 38 as 1778). The composition relates closely to the Ramsay coronation portrait; the companion piece of the King was copied from the Dance portrait of 1776 (see George III). A half-length version was at Bayham Abbey (Sir George Scharf's Sketch Books, 91/11). A lead statue probably of Queen Charlotte, dating to c. 1775, stands on Queen Square in Bloomsbury, London, [65] [66] and there are two statues of her in Charlotte, North Carolina: at Charlotte Douglas International Airport [67] and at the International Trade Center. [68] Engraving by R. Houston after Robert Pile [presumably Pine] three-quarter length holding the infant Prince of Wales. The head taken from Frye’s mezzotint of 1762. By all reports, the king and queen had an unusually happy marriage, and George III was a devoted father and husband. But court life was difficult for Charlotte, who clashed with her mother-in-law over the formal rules of the British aristocracy and found the expectation to bear plenty of heirs exhausting. By the time she had borne 14 of her 15 children, she wrote that “I don’t think a prisoner could wish more ardently for his liberty than I wish to be rid of my burden.”

Was Queen Charlotte The First Black Queen?

Queen Charlotte wrote to the duke about developments from the empire’s American colonies, which had begun to revolt under her husband’s reign: The research notes / rough draft for this work can be found here. Addendum 2: Mistakes in Gregory (2016) Queen Charlotte's tastes were rather less plain than her husband's, and she had some very luxurious rooms in the new Queen's House. She assembled an impressive collection of furniture, Sèvres porcelain and oriental decorative arts, in ivory, porcelain, embroidered silk and lacquer and she also collected jewelled and gold boxes. Some of the most expensive furniture in the collection was made for Queen Charlotte, for example this Vile & Cobb jewel cabinet to house her extensive collection of diamonds and pearls. Engraving by F. Bartolozzi after William Beechey, bust length, the King’s miniature worn at her breast, as 'Patroness of Botany and of the Fine Arts' (R. J. B. Walker, The eighteenth and early nineteenth century Miniatures in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen, 1992, fig.19; M. Levey, A Royal Subject, Portraits of Queen Charlotte, National Gallery, 1977, p 6).