George IV: Art & Spectacle review – A glutton and a spendthrift with excellent taste

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Melanie McDonagh13 November 2019

What's your impression of George IV, better known as the Prince Regent, other than the man who gave his name to the Regency period and the kind of dresses Jane Austen’s girls wear? Mine is that famous Rowlandson caricature of him with a cigar, fat, gouty and bloated, called the Voluptuary under the Horrors of Digestion. Mistresses, lavish expenditure and the Brighton Pavilion: that’s what he calls to mind.

This new exhibition doesn’t quite seek to overturn that impression — the receipts for the coronation confirm his way with money — but it does make a case for an altogether more interesting individual. He was, it’s clear, after Charles 1, the most discerning royal art collector among British monarchs, a patron of artists.

He was a man of strong family affections, if you exclude the obvious case of his wife whom he cordially detested (it was mutual) which led to a showdown at the coronation compared with which the falling-out of Diana and Charles seems tame. The most interesting acquisition is a fine, tender sketch of Maria Fitzherbert, his morganatic wife. But there is also a lovely picture of the hapless Queen Caroline with their beloved daughter, Charlotte: she was, it seems, quite hard to track down.

Then there’s the frustrated soldier-general and statesman. George III didn’t fancy his heir putting himself in harm’s way, so George had to kick his heels at home while his younger brother, Frederick, the original Grand Old Duke of York, got to be commander in chief. But he followed the Napoleonic Wars closely, was fascinated by Napoleon and brought together the leaders of the coalition powers in London in 1814 and saw his role as critical in the destruction of the Emperor.

And then there’s his passion for collecting: the poor man was never allowed on the Grand Tour or even to France, but he made up for it with a virtual grand tour of fine prints of Rome, and pictures of the construction of Versailles.

King marvellous: Who Kills First For a Crown by Thomas Rowlandson

This is a wonderful exhibition. Womaniser, glutton and spendthrift George may have been, but he was a spendthrift with excellent taste. He loved the Flemish masters and his most expensive acquisition was Rembrandt’s The Shipbuilder and his Wife (a terrific but not idealised image of matrimony: the wife is pushing what looks like a bill at the husband); another Rembrandt, A Portrait of Agatha Bas, is wonderful — she holds what seems to be the side of her portrait. And there’s a beautiful Rubens depiction of St George. There’s an interesting strand in the Prince’s collecting: he not only had sophisticated taste of his own but sought to bring back some of the vast collection of Charles I that was dispersed at the Civil War.

He loved Hogarth and we see here a very different Hogarth from the satires: an exquisite illustration for Hudibras. His sporting tastes are reflected in the horse paintings. A Stubbs shows the prince himself on horseback; the horse is more magnificent.

His most fruitful patronage was of Sir Thomas Lawrence, a friend. The final room, with scarlet backdrop and everyone — from the King himself, magnificent in coronation robes, in the same colour — includes a dazzling collection of the portraits he commissioned Lawrence to paint of the coalition leaders.

Aside from the succession of striking paintings, the exquisite Sèvres porcelain and the fashionable China ceramics, there’s lots that’s humanly interesting. There are some of the caricatures, including a Thomas Rowlandson, Who Kills First for a Crown, comparing his pursuit of his ministers favourably with that of the Duc d’Orléans. There’s also a reflection of the human comedy that was Regency England, not least the unforgettable portrait of the fashionable French Chevalier de Saint-Georges, who lived as a woman, duelling in female rig in front of spectators at Carlton House. And there’s George’s edition of Emma, which Jane Austen dedicated to him, though she disapproved of his behaviour to the Queen.

What’s evident is his obsession with the Stuarts, shown in an imposing drawing of Charles 1 and a fabulous book of hours from James II’s son, Cardinal Duke of York, as thanks for his pension.
What you get here isn’t just a collection of porcelain, robes and paintings, but a man. Flawed but fabulous.

November 15-May 3, 2020 at The Queen’s Gallery, SW1 (0303 123 7301; rct.uk)

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