British Monarchies and the Grand Tour

Enlightening online lecture from ARTscapades looking at the relationship between the British monarchy.

Desmond Shawe-Taylor, former Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures, explained the concept of the Grand Tour using pictures from the Royal Collection where possible. I thought I knew a lot about the Grand Tour but I had never thought about the political background to it before and the fact that the Old Pretender and Bonnie Prince Charlie had set up a rival court to the Hanoverians in France and then Rome. Young gentlemen were travelling through Europe at a time when the British were out of favour and had no ambassador in Italy.

He also talked about how the monarchy tried to acquire the knowledge and kudos of the tour when they couldn’t actually go on it themselves and in particular, he took us through George III’s purchases of prints, drawings and paintings to fill that gap.

He was also very good on the difference between the earlier Grand Tourists, who were going to see things related to the classical literature they had studied and the art which was influenced by it and went to have the ideas they had already formed confirmed, and later tourists, particularly after the discovery of places like Pompeii, went to discover new things and form new ideas, which particularly as more was known about Greece, tended towards the Republican.

 

 

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