“Cecil Beaton essentially did the same job for our queen as Hans Holbein the Younger did for Henry VIII”
LUCY WORSLEY, chief curator at Historic Royal Palaces, tells us about her forthcoming documentary for BBC Four, which explores the ways that the British monarchy has used photography since the reign of Queen Victoria
What story does the documentary set out to tell?
The programme makes the case that it’s photography that has been essential to the British monarchy’s extraordinary survival over the last 200 years. Creating and releasing images has created a sense of connection and indeed affection between sovereigns and people.
How aware were the royals of the potential of photography from its earliest days?
Queen Victoria and especially Prince Albert were ‘early adopters’. They even had their own dark room at Windsor Castle. At first the images they had taken were for private consumption, but soon the pictures started to slip out into the world, and they began to realise that they’d stumbled upon a propaganda tool for the monarchy that was more powerful than anything else invented in the 19th century.
You can see that particularly through the most popular photographs of Victoria. At first, she’s shown in a very informal and ‘unqueenly’ way. Later, when she became a widow, the hundreds of thousands of images of her circulating across the world in the form of commercially available cartes de vistes kept her alive in people’s memories even after she withdrew from public life to mourn. And then, finally, when she became empress of India, she appeared in a new, more splendid style. It’s the story of a growing confidence in a new art form.
Why were royal photographer
Cecil Beaton’s images of Elizabeth II so important?
Beaton (1904–80) was a magician when it came to royal photography. He’d honed his skills on Hollywood stars, and he was photographing the queen, he drew on the historical tradition of painted royal portraiture to enhance her authority. Yet he also gave her a very 20th-century sense of glamour. He essentially did the same job for our queen as Hans Holbein the Younger did for Henry VIII.
Are there any images that tell you how royal attitudes and/or our attitudes to the royals are changing?
When the Duke of Cambridge appeared on the cover of [gay lifestyle magazine] Attitude, it created the same kind of reaction as when his mother, Princess Diana, was photographed shaking hands with someone who was HIV positive, or walking across a field of land-mines.
Even in the early 20th century, George V and Queen Mary realised that being photographed visiting coal mines or normal people’s houses would be good both for their own image, and that of the morale of Britain.
Lucy Worsley’s new documentary on royal photography (title still to be confirmed) is due to air on BBC Four in May. It accompanies an exhibition, Life Through a Royal Lens, which is due to open at Kensington Palace later in 2020