#firstgeorgians

08 Apr 2014

A review of The First Georgians: Art and Monarchy 1714-1760 at the Queen's Gallery at Buckingham Palace

The last time I wrote on here was after a visit to Georgians Revealed at the British Library. I lauded the wonderful array of objects that they had on show, but also bemoaned the lack of any real inclusion of science in their rich display of eighteenth-century British culture.

Yesterday morning, those gripes were partially laid to rest by another stunning eighteenth-century exhibition that opens at the Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace on Friday, and of which I was lucky enough to get a preview. The First Georgians: Art and Monarchy 1714-1760 considers the importance of Georges I and II as well as Prince Frederick in the formation of British culture. The argument is that the monarchs were part of the ‘silent revolution’ in culture and society that took place in the first half of the century. Not an argument that is often made by historians of the period, but one that is well made with the wealth of objects assembled from across the royal collection.

Strikingly, as you ascend the stairs to the exhibition galleries, science introduces you to the arguments of the show, as curator (and Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures) Desmond Shawe-Taylor told us on his tour. They have tried to re-create Queen Caroline’s grotto at Richmond along the sides of the staircase, combining busts of Newton, Locke, Boyle, Clarke and Wollaston with an engraved view of the garden. The ‘quiet’ revolution in natural philosophical thought, in which an entirely new world system became integrated with established religion, avoiding a Darwinian struggle (as Shawe-Taylor put it), becomes the framework of the entire show. Having a female thinker and collector, in the person of Queen Caroline, given pride of place is no bad thing either!

Readers of this blog will be unsurprised to hear that I was also particularly excited by the third room, which put Hogarth and graphic art at the forefront of cultural changes in the period. The Royal Collection includes some wonderful original drawings by Hogarth as well as his prints. Indeed, my hero was introduced in the first panel text of the show, describing “The Age of Hogarth’, a time of speculation, greed, squalor and savage satire,’ as much part of the period as the ostentation and luxury of a Kneller portrait or rococo table. Interesting, then, that the section on Hogarth comes at the end of the long blue room, which was entirely focused on the graphic output of the eighteenth century. I particularly enjoyed a section on ‘The First Georgians at War’ considered through the collection of military maps and prints assembled by ‘Butcher’ Cumberland.

For sheer effect and opulence, however, the green and red galleries must take the prize, pulling together a rich range of treasures from the Georgian age of the monarchy to show exactly the fashion and extravagance that Hogarth was critiquing in his modern moral series. Here you have Canaletto’s wonderful views of the Thames alongside an extraordinary Pyke table clock, an extravagant silver-gilt table service and, my personal favourite, a pair of porcelain tureens in the shape of bunches of asparagus. It is interesting to consider this expression of royal taste and wealth alongside collections of more plebeian contemporaries like Robert Walpole, whose painting collection was recently reunited at Houghton Hall.

There was no sign, however, of Hogarth’s A Rake's Progress in the show, nor a whiff of navigation or royal patronage of science (as opposed to intellectual interest in, or collecting of, scientific objects and books). Lucky then that there’s a certain show combining just those omissions opening in Greenwich come July …