Treasures of the Royal Collection

How could you possibly give the flavour of a collection of 485,000 items in one hour? Oliver Everett, Librarian Emeritus of the Royal Library, Windsor Castle, did just that, brilliantly and excitingly, in his October lecture to the Society. The Royal Collection represents the personal tastes of our sovereigns over the past 500 years- our present Queen added the first Turner, his magnificent watercolour of Windsor Castle; surprisingly non of her predecessors liked him- plus gifts, and even booty from some of our past wars. The greatest collectors were, in Oliver's eyes, George IV, George III, Charles I and CharlesII. The greatest vandal was Oliver Cromwell who sold much of the collection to fund his Commonwealth, much of which was later bought back by CharlesII who also bought some 600 Leonardo Da Vinci drawings. The statistics are mind blowing: 30,000 Old Master drawings, 80 Holbeins, 27 Van Dykes including the triple head study of Charles I (for a bust by Benini, Later destroyed by fire), 5 Rembrandts, 17 Stubbs, 1 Vermeer. And that is before you get to the amazing pottery, gold and silverware jewellery, Faberge Eggs, the Diamond Diadem (as seen on our postage stamps) and of course the Cullinan Diamond. Oliver Everett's great achievement was to put over all these facts whilst showing magnificent slides of many key works in the collection, so we could appreciate the full scope and scale of the Collection at the same time as absorbing the fine detail of many of the treasures.