Portrait of a Queen Consort

Riding the wave of Coronation fever, our speaker for the May meeting was Sarah Bowerman, with a talk entitled The Iconography of Queen Charlotte, with a nod to the fact that we now have a Queen Consort again. Queen Charlotte, Sarah explains, "was our longest serving Queen Consort, and during her 57-year tenure she was much painted and drawn, as ‘humble’ German princess (with slave), bride, queen, mother (to 15 children), sister, patron of the arts, fashion victim and gold-gobbling, snuff-stained, miser—living as she did during the Golden Age of British portraiture and printed satire". Sarah's talk featured a host of official portraits and contemporary (often quite unflattering) satirical prints, which Sarah mined to present an analysis of how Charlotte was viewed by the public, how she wished to present herself, and why some painters were preferred over others.

You can see a video of the talk at https://youtu.be/t7J0todXVq8 and you can see photos from the evening at https://www.flickr.com/photos/sheridanclub/albums/72177720308031987.