The Unofficial British Royal Family Pages

The Royal Collection has been significantly affected by the recent movement to make the monarchy more modern and professional. It became a department in the Royal Household in 1987 and a registered charity in 1993. It has adopted sophisticated modern techniques to care for delicate items that were too often knocked around by servants in the past. Works of art from the Royal Collection are much more visible than in the past, thanks to traveling exhibits, the remodeled Queen's Gallery and opening of the state rooms at Buckingham Palace, and the addition of an art gallery at the Palace of Holyroodhouse. The Royal Collection also has a web site with photographs and descriptions of many of the more important works.

The cost of the Royal Collection is now funded by the admission charges and gift shops at Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, and the Palace of Holyroodhouse. The Royal Collection Trust is now making money rather than only spending it. The new capitalistic attitude does not fit very well with the claim that the Royal Collection is in trust for the nation. Something can hardly be said to belong to the nation when the nation has to pay twenty-five pounds (the cost of adult admission to the state rooms, Queen's Gallery, and Royal Mews at Buckingham Palace) to see it, available July through September only. The National Gallery, the British Museum and the Victoria & Albert Museum are infinitely better deals, with free admission and far more art on display. The Royal Collection brags that its advantage over museums is that its artworks may be seen in "the historic settings for which they were originally commissioned or acquired." This is true in some cases, but most of the Royal Collection has moved around quite a lot.

The Royal Collection has over 7000 paintings, 350,000 photographs, 1400 sculptures, and 3000 miniatures, aside from the world-class collection of decorative arts and the best collection of drawings in the world. (Incidentally, Charlotte Higgins wrote that the Royal Collection has 500,000 prints, but their web site says 150,000.) The Royal Collection really is the national collection of art in Britain, purchased with government funds over centuries. The Queen may find that she has opened a Pandora's box by creating what are essentially private, for-profit art galleries to display only a small fraction of the enormous art collection that supposedly belongs to Britain, not to her. The Prince of Wales (who is head of the Royal Collection Trust) and Prince William are said to want to improve public access to the Royal Collection, perhaps by increasing the gallery space in Buckingham and Kensington Palaces. Hopefully future reigns will continue to bring greater access to the treasures of the Crown.