Osborne House will be featured on BBC Four this evening (Tuesday) as part of a landmark television series Art, Passion & Power: The Story of the Royal Collection.
Part of The Royal Collection Season, a major partnership between Royal Collection Trust and the BBC, the programmes brings both masterpieces and lesser-known works of art from the Royal Collection to audiences across Britain.
Visiting royal residences, museums and galleries across the UK, writer and presenter Andrew Graham-Dixon selects some of the most spectacular works of art from the Collection. He explains what these objects meant to the artists who created them and to the royal collectors who acquired them.
In Episode 3 of the series, broadcast on BBC Four at 21:00, Andrew visits Osborne, the former royal residence of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, and views artefacts such as the painting Florinda by Franz Xaver Winterhalter in the Queen’s Sitting Room and the white Carrera marble statue of a winged female figure of Victory in the Grand Corridor.
Michael Hunter, Curator at Osborne says:
“English Heritage is delighted that Osborne is to be included in the third programme about the Royal Collection.
“Victoria and Albert were keen collectors and Osborne contains many objects that demonstrate the royal couple’s interest in the fine and decorative arts. Victoria and Albert’s collecting was a joint venture with each giving paintings and works of art to the other for birthdays and at Christmas, and the collection at Osborne – their creation as a private family home – survives as a poignant memorial in paint and marble of a great love story.
“Many of the objects remain where Victoria and Albert placed them and as a result Osborne provides a powerful example of Victoria and Albert’s tastes as collectors.”
