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Michael Rysbrack’s Sculpture Series for Queen Caroline’s Library at St James’s Palace
(2015-09-11)
Marchner, Joanna
In January 1738 Michael Rysbrack (1693–1770) received a letter from Isaac Ware, Secretary to the Board of Works, requesting that he should return to the Office of Works a series of portrait busts, still incomplete, which had been commissioned by Queen Caroline of Ansbach. The sculptor was informed that he would be paid in full for the project. Caroline of Ansbach’s commission to Rysbrack was substantial. Had it come to fruition, it would have constituted his longest series of associated portrait busts. It would also have been the largest royal commission for sculpture in the first half of the eighteenth century. However, it was only the project that was blown off course. The work which Rysbrack so diligently returned to the royal family would later meet a series of mishaps too. This has left the art historian with a significant task: to reconstruct the importance of the sculptural series as a whole, and to explore Caroline of Ansbach's ambition in placing the commission.
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Keep your wig on
(2023-04-01)
Edwards, Sebastian
Be it a Frizz, Hedgehog or Cauliflower style, fashionable 18th-century hairpieces were as bizarre as their names suggested.
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'Such costly furniture, such beds of state': Reflections on the Conservation and Redisplay of Queen Charlotte's State Bed
(2008-08)
Edwards, Sebastian
This Summer and Autumn visitors to Hampton Court will have the opportunity to see Queen Charlotte's magnificent bed, from the Royal Collection, for the first time in years as major conservation work reaches completion. This work has a complex and chequered history of its own: what began in the 1950s as good, but old fashioned, restoration work transformed into conservation, only to be interrupted by the devastating fire of 1986. One of the benefits of this drawn-out process is the new information it has produced about the bed's enigmatic past.
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Welcome
(2023-04-01)
Putnam, Polly
;
Acott Williams, Claudia
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Baths and Bathing at the Early Georgian Court
(1995)
Marschner, Joanna
The second half of the seventeenth century saw a lively debate between those who advocated bathing as beneficial to health, and those who decried it as damaging, except in the most carefully prescribed circumstances. Several serious outbreaks of plague and an uncertainty about the means by which this disease was transmitted, together with the growing association of public bathing houses with immoral purposes, had served to discourage bathing on any large scale. In 1655 the Frenchman T. Renaudot wrote 'the bath except for medical reasons, when absolutely necessary is not only superfluous, but very prejudicial to man'. However, by the end of the century the custom of bathing for recreational purposes was again in the ascendant, promoted in 1697 by Sir John Floyer who advocated 'temperate baths' for 'beauty and pleasure' as well as for 'cleanliness'. By 1769 William Buchan in Domestic Medicine was even more explicit.' A woman can have no excuse for allowing a child to be dirty. Poverty may oblige her to give it coarse cloaths, but if she does not keep them clean it would be her own fault. . . frequent washing not only removes the filth and sordes . . . but braces the body and enlivens the spirits.'
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Authenticity and Authorship: The Chocolate Kitchens at Hampton Court
(2015-04-13)
Putnam, Polly
;
Peirce, Aileen
In this paper we use the example of the Chocolate Kitchens at Hampton Court Palace to explore issues of authenticity and authorship in re-creating historic interiors. In February 2014, Historic Royal Palaces opened a suite of three rooms associated with chocolate making. One is an almost perfectly preserved Chocolate Kitchen with 18th century fixtures and fittings. The second, badly fire damaged, had little surviving historic building fabric. The third, the Chocolate Room, was empty apart from badly broken 18th century ironmongery in the fireplace and the scars of historic shelving on the walls. In the surviving Chocolate Kitchen, we took the unusual step of us ing projection-mapping technology, avoiding physical interventions in this sensitive space. The blank space next door gave us the opportunity for experimental archaeology, making chocolate using historic equipment and recipes. In the Chocolate Room, where the final touches were put to the chocolate, we decided to re-create the historic interior. Unlike many restorations, none of the original contents survived but research uncovered detailed inventories, archaeological fragments and extant examples from other collections. In the Chocolate Room we have mixed real objects and carefully re searched re-creations with our guiding purpose being that the space must feel inhabited. We have also used the latest projection mapping techniques to create an animated diagram, using 18th century illustrative styles, to bring the abandoned Chocolate Kitchen to life. We make the argument that it is possible to produce an “authentic re-creation”. Research has shown that this was the actual Choco late Room. While its contents are not original, the authenticity of the experience lies in the archaeological and technological ac curacy involved in the re-creation of each item. Nonetheless, the question must be asked, have we created an elaborate fake? Visitors expect historic interiors to provide the authentic “history where it happened” experience. Our visitors tell us that they want to “step back in time”, “walk in the footsteps of kings and queens”. In the Chocolate Room, we have pushed the boundaries of au thenticity, creating a world where visitors are transported to a moment in history – they are complicit in this process. Re-creation only becomes fakery when we lie to our audience. By presenting our process on site via our multimedia guide and offsite via our website, we create dialogues about materials and historic craft techniques. Visitor research shows that the process of reconstruc tion is something that visitors find every bit as fascinating as the experience of the room itself. The re-creation of the Chocolate Room becomes an authentic 18th century experience using historic craft skills, but one that is explicitly authored in 2014 using digital media.
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Queerness at Court
(2023-04-01)
Marsden, Holly
The sophisticated, 'anything goes' atmosphere of the 18th-century court was a relatively safe place to display queer desire. But as Holly Marsden reminds us, such opnness could be fatally dangerous for the 'mollies' in the taverns.
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The Story of Kensington Palace
(2019-04-09)
Borman, Tracy
Today Kensington Palace is synonymous with young royals: it is the official home of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and their family, and of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. It is also famous for being the residence of Diana, Princess of Wales, during the last years of her life. But the history of Kensington stretches back much further. It boasts more than three centuries of continuous royal occupation, making it unique among the Historic Royal Palaces. Formerly a private house enlarged by Christopher Wren in the late 17th century to suit the needs of William and Mary, Kensington Palace was the favoured home of five sovereigns until the death of George II in 1760. The palace's unprepossessing appearance belies its architectural significance, for it was shaped and decorated by some of the country’s leading architects, artists and craftsmen, and is now a major national monument. Kensington’s social and political significance is arguably even greater. It has played host to some of the most important personalities and events in the long history of the royal family. It was, for example, the birthplace and childhood home of Queen Victoria. From the late 19th century onwards, Kensington became a visitor attraction, a museum and home to the Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection. The palace now attracts more than 600,000 visitors a year. In this new illustrated account, Tracy Borman tells the fascinating story of Kensington from private residence to modern-day royal palace, describing not only the development of the building and its magnificent gardens, but also the dramas and intrigues of court life. Its history is set against a backdrop of events that shaped Britain and its monarchy: from the Jacobite uprisings of the mid-18th century to the rise of industrialization in the 19th, and the turbulence of world war in the 20th. Here, in the domestic surrounds of the palace, the monarchy evolved in tandem with the times. The story of Kensington Palace is, in short, the story of the modern monarchy.
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Get ready with me!
(2023-04-01)
Putnam, Polly
Just as today's red-carpet celebrities post Instagram or Tik Tok reels of their glamorous prep, so too did 18th-century aristocrats share their 'getting ready' to boost their social standing.
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Court & Couture
(2023-04-01)
Putnam, Polly
In the 18th century, what an ambitious aristocrat wore to court mattered as much as the outfit a celebrity chooses for the red carpet today.

Georgian History (1714-1837)

Georgian History (1714-1837)

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