Royal Subject: Portraits of Queen Charlotte

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Wikimedia Commons Queen Charlotte was particularly fond of her eldest offspring, George IV, who became king after his father’s death.

The research notes / rough draft for this work can be found here. Addendum 2: Mistakes in Gregory (2016) Painting by Francis Hayman, whole length in coronation robes, painted for the annexe to the Rotunda at Vauxhall Gardens. Listed in the proposed Vauxhall sale, 15-16 June 1840 (B. Allen, Francis Hayman, 1987, p 171). I don’t think a prisoner could wish more ardently for his liberty than I wish to be rid of my burden and see the end of my campaign. I would be happy if I knew this was the last time,” she wrote in a 1780 letter while pregnant with her 14th child, Prince Alfred.

George and Charlotte’s relationship

Unfortunately, Queen Charlotte’s life’s end was far from blissful. After the onset of George III’s permanent “madness” in 1811, she grew temperamental — likely from the stress of her husband’s un-diagnosed mental condition — and even fought publicly with her son over her right to the crown. She was greatly distraught when she heard the news that the King and Queen of France had been executed. New York Public Library Queen Charlotte was interested in various subjects, particularly the arts, botany, and philanthropy.

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. Painting by Thomas Gainsborough, whole length. Royal Collection (E. K. Waterhouse, Gainsborough, 1958, no.130; Sir Oliver Millar, The Later Georgian Pictures in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen, I, 1969, no.775). Exhibited RA 1781 (168). 'Tis actual motion, and done with such a light, airy, facility' (Northcote); 'the only happy likeness we ever saw portrayed of Her Majesty' (M. Levey, A Royal Subject, Portraits of Queen Charlotte, National Gallery, 1977, p 15). Engraved G. Dupont 1790, whose preparatory oil sketch was formerly with the Countess of Athlone. An oval bust-length version by Gainsborough also in the Royal Collection (Sir Oliver Millar, The Later Georgian Pictures in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen, I, 1969, no.777). At the queen's death, her eldest son, the Prince Regent, claimed Charlotte's jewels, and on his death they were in turn claimed by his heir, WilliamIV. On William's death, Charlotte's bequest then sparked a protracted dispute between her granddaughter Queen Victoria, who claimed the jewels as the property of the British Crown, and Charlotte's now eldest-surviving son Ernest, who claimed the jewels by right of being the most senior male member of the House of Hanover. The dispute would not be resolved in Ernest's lifetime. Eventually in 1858, over twenty years after the death of WilliamIV and nearly forty years after Charlotte's death, the matter was decided in favour of Ernest's son George, upon which Victoria had the jewels given into the custody of the Hanoverian ambassador. [55]

What's fascinating about Aptekar's project is that he started by conducting focus group meetings with people from Charlotte to find out what the Queen and her portrait meant to citizens of the US city. "I took my cues from the passionate responses of individuals whom I asked to help me understand what Queen Charlotte represents to them."