Royal Subject: Portraits of Queen Charlotte

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Painting by William Beechey, whole length, holding a Maltese dog. Royal Collection (Sir Oliver Millar, The Later Georgian Pictures in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen, I, 1969, no.659, pl.156). Exhibited RA 1797 (92). Engraved for Boydell 1803 and by T. Ryder 1804. Versions in the Courtauld Gallery and at Upton House; a three-quarter length version, formerly in the collection of W. L. Elkins, sold Sotheby’s, 10 November 1995, lot 25; a half length dated 1799 painted for Mr Ruyfsen sold Sotheby's, 14 July 1999, lot 97, and another formerly at Burley-on-the-Hill; reduced copy at Callenberg. Enamel by Henry Bone 1799 (Royal Collection; R. J. B. Walker, The eighteenth and early nineteenth century Miniatures in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen, 1992, no.748); preparatory drawing in the NPG Bone albums (R. Walker, 'Henry Bone's Pencil Drawings in the Naitonal Portrait Gallery', Wal. Soc. 1999, no.111, fig.116), with two oval half-length miniatures by William Grimaldi (R. J. B. Walker, The eighteenth and early nineteenth century Miniatures in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen, 1992, nos.815-16); another sold Sotheby’s, 9 April 1992, lot 208. Head only 'perhaps by Lady Beechey' Royal Collection (R. J. B. Walker, The eighteenth and early nineteenth century Miniatures in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen, 1992, no.328), and another by François Ferrière sold Christie's, 16 February 1965, lot 38; a pastel copy of the head, attributed to John Russell, is in a private collection.

Mezzotint by Thomas Frye from his own drawing, the likeness taken at a London theatre (J. C. Smith, British Mezzotint Portriats, I, p 516), published 24 May 1762 (after Frye’s death). The companion piece of the King engraved by Pether published 1 November 1762. Related but indifferent portraits in oil sold Sotheby’s, 14 March 1951, lot 104, and Christie’s, 17 June 1966, lot 109. A three-quarter length mezzotint by P. Haid evidently derived from Frye’s plate. Filled with pride and joy at daring to offer you a tribute, I was finishing up these sonatas to be laid at the feet of your Majesty; I was, I confess, drunk with vanity and thrilled with myself, when I spied the Genius of Music at my side.” The principal surveys of Charlotte’s iconography are contained in the catalogues of the Royal Collection (Sir Oliver Millar, The Later Georgian Pictures in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen, I, 1969 and R. J. B. Walker, The eighteenth and early nineteenth century Miniatures in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen, 1992) and in the National Gallery exhibition catalogue by Michael Levey (M. Levey, A Royal Subject, Portraits of Queen Charlotte, 1977). Less than a year after the marriage, on 12 August 1762, the queen gave birth to her first child, George, Prince of Wales. In the course of their marriage, the couple became the parents of 15 children, [10] all but two of whom ( Octavius and Alfred) survived into adulthood. [11] [12] [13]Desmond Shawe-Taylor, a surveyor of the Queen’s pictures, believes that the theory of Queen Charlotte’s ancestry isn’t supported by Ramsay’s portraits. Rogers makes a claim that is very specific and barely a claim at all– that according to the anthropometric factors used in “scientific” racism that a narrow nose and mouth indicate that a person is “Aryan”, “Nordic”, or “German”, Charlotte does not conform to this look – at least according to one portrait and an out-of-context quote. He then makes the leap that this this must indicate a “Negro strain” in her, not simply that race doesn’t exist as a biological concept to begin with.

When this portrait was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1781, Sir Henry Bate-Dudley praised it as ‘the only happy likeness we ever saw pourtrayed of her Majesty’. Gainsborough had already received commissions from the King’s brothers but the exhibition of these major full lengths proved his pre-eminence as unofficial court painter, ‘the Apollo of the Palace’. A portrait of Prince William, painted in the same year, was followed by the set of 15 ovals of the royal family in 1782. Marble bust attributed to the studio of John Bacon sr. Southill (illus. S. Deuchat, Samuel Whitbread and British Art, exhibition catalogue, Museum of London, 1984, p 43). Presented to Samuel Whitbread c.1787 with a bust of the King derived from a Bacon type of 1774.L-R, ‘Queen Charlotte Walks in Her Garden’ by B. Graham Weathers, Jr., Charlotte, NC; statue in Queen Square, London, UK; statue at Charlotte Douglas International Airport by Raymond Kaskey Painting by G. D. Matthieu, three-quarter length seated, the King’s miniature on her left wrist. Gripsholm Castle (Katalog, Portratt fore 1809, 1951, no.1192). A century later, Queen Victoria agreed to serve as the godmother of Sarah Forbes Bonetta, a young girl born into a prominent Yoruba family. In the late 1840s, King Ghezo of Dahomey (most recently portrayed on the silver screen in The Woman King) defeated Bonetta’s tribe, killed her parents and enslaved her. After a British captain failed to convince Ghezo to abandon his role in the slave trade in 1850, the king gifted Bonetta to him as consolation. Upon the pair’s arrival in England, Victoria agreed to take the girl “under her protection,” paying for her education and looking out for her throughout her life, wrote historian Caroline Bressey in a 2005 journal article. Queen Charlotte's tastes were rather less plain than her husband's, and she had some very luxurious rooms in the new Queen's House. She assembled an impressive collection of furniture, Sèvres porcelain and oriental decorative arts, in ivory, porcelain, embroidered silk and lacquer and she also collected jewelled and gold boxes. Some of the most expensive furniture in the collection was made for Queen Charlotte, for example this Vile & Cobb jewel cabinet to house her extensive collection of diamonds and pearls. Her surroundings include some pieces of furniture, which appears to be her velvet-lined coronation chair behind her where the trailing train from her robe is partly draped over.