This Week in London – Georgian fashion; Shakespeare’s First Folio; what’s new at the British Museum…

Wedding dress worn by 
Princess Charlotte of Wales, 1816. PICTURE: Royal Collection Trust/© His Majesty King Charles III 2023

• The only royal wedding dress that survives from the Georgian period – the silk embroidered bridal gown of Princess Charlotte of Wales, daughter of King George IV – is one of the star sights at a new exhibition at The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace. Style and Society: Dressing the Georgians features more than 200 works from the Royal Collection including rare surviving examples of clothing and accessories as well as artworks by artists such as Gainsborough, Zoffany and Hogarth. Other highlights include a portrait of the wedding ceremony of George IV and Princess Caroline of Brunswick by John Graham – on display for the first time – as well as the original silver and gold dress samples supplied for the bride and other royal guests. There’s also a Thomas Gainsborough,’ depicting’s full-length portrait of Queen Charlotte wearing a magnificent court gown, a preserved gown of similar style worn at Queen Charlotte’s court in the 1760, and life-size coronation portraits of George III and Queen Charlotte by Allan Ramsay. Other items include a 1782 portrait of Prince Octavius, the 13th child of George III and Queen Charlotte, by Benjamin West in which the three-year-old wears a a style of dress known as a ‘skeleton suit’, jewellery including diamond rings given to Queen Charlotte on her wedding day and a bracelet with nine lockets – one with a miniature of the left eye of Princess Charlotte of Wales, and accessories such as a silver-gilt travelling toilet service acquired by the future George IV as a gift for his private secretary at a cost of £300. The exhibition can be seen until 8th October. Admission charges apply. For more, see www.rct.uk.

One of the finest copies of Shakespeare’s First Folio goes on display at the City of London’s Guildhall Library for just one day on Monday, 24th April, as part of the celebrations surrounding the 400th anniversary of its publication. The document will be on display between 10.30am to 3.30pm with a 10-minute introductory talk given on the hour throughout the day. Two small and original copies (‘Quartos’) of Henry IV Part One and Othello will also be on display, next to a replica copy of the First Folio that visitors can look through. The First Folio brought together 36 plays in one volume and was published in an edition of around 750 copies on 8th November, 1623 – seven years after Shakespeare’s death. It is now regarded as one of the most valuable books in the literary world. For more, see www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/things-to-do/history-and-heritage/guildhall-library.

Prints and drawings acquired by the British Museum over the past five years have gone on show in Room 90. New acquisitions: Paul Bril to Wendy Red Star features works ranging from an early 17th-century study for a fresco by the Flemish artist Paul Bril to 19th century drawings by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 2019 prints by the Apsáalooke (Crow) artist Wendy Red Star and Cornelia Parker’s From H to B and back again – made during with the COVID-19 pandemic. Can be seen until 10th September. Admission is free. For more, see britishmuseum.org/exhibitions/new-acquisitions-paul-bril-wendy-red-star.

Send all items for inclusion to exploringlondon@gmail.com.

Advertisement

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.