It was dangerous luck for the proprietor of a portrait of a beautiful younger Roman mannequin, when the longer term King Edward VII walked into the artist’s studio in February 1859, and fell for her instantly. The portray had already been promised to and paid for by the collector George de Monbrison, however the 17-year-old prince actually needed her. Within the discreet phrases of the artist, Frederic Leighton, who had evidently been put in a fragile place, Monbrison “has very kindly consented to surrender his Nanna to the Prince”.
The portray, newly conserved with its authentic wealthy deep color and swirling brush strokes rescued from a thick layer of waxy Seventies varnish, is included in The Edwardians: Age of Class, the brand new exhibition on the King’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace, its first public look within the UK in 25 years.
It was no passing fancy on the a part of the prince. Within the journal he saved for his father Prince Albert, of his rigorously chaperoned, firmly academic Roman travels—in accordance with the curator Alex Buck, Leighton’s studio was {the teenager}’s sixth artist’s studio go to of the day—she wrote: “I admired three lovely portraits of a Roman lady, every representing the identical individual in a unique perspective, & every giving fairly a unique interpretation of the identical countenance.”
A portray of the prince’s rooms at Frewin Corridor, Oxford, contains the portrait of Nanna, seen on the left-hand wall © Royal Assortment Enterprises Restricted 2025 | Royal Assortment Belief
Engravings and pictures within the Royal Assortment present that Nanna, with Bianca, one other meeker view of the identical mannequin, held on the wall of Edward’s luxurious suite of scholar rooms at Frewin Corridor, Oxford, and moved with him to Marlborough Home in London. {A photograph} of his dressing room in Buckingham Palace in 1910, the yr of his dying, reveals Nanna and Bianca hanging amongst a formidable assortment of strolling sticks and Homburg hats.
[Edward] had fairly a very good eye for artwork… he was in all probability not as uncouth as he’s usually portrayed
Alex Buck, curator
“We consider this was his first impartial acquisition of a portray. He had fairly a very good eye for artwork—the entire story provides you a unique perspective on the prince, he was in all probability not as uncouth as he’s usually portrayed,” Buck says.
In the meantime Leighton clearly had an issue along with his authentic shopper. Monbrison was, the artist wrote, “evidently sadly upset—a lot in order that I’ve written to supply to do what I couldn’t beneath every other circumstances, ie. copy it for him”. The copy hangs in Leighton Home, the artist’s astonishing Moorish-tiled dwelling and studio in Holland Park, London, now a museum.
Buck has been unable to find how a lot, if something, Edward paid for the portray; “After his dying there was a bonfire of a mass of his receipts and data, at his request,” she says. Nevertheless, the artist and the royal remained mates for all times, and Leighton designed one of the vital spectacular events of the century, the flamboyant gown ball at Marlborough Home in 1874. He turned Lord Leighton, the primary artist to be awarded a peerage, simply earlier than his dying in 1896.
Conservator Nicola Christie says that earlier than conservation the portray had a murky, hazy look as a result of the thick waxy varnish had, over half a century, darkened and attracted dust, stuffed within the texture of the paint strokes, and nearly obscured the fruit and peacock feathers within the background. Her work has revealed the blue and purple used within the mannequin’s gleaming darkish hair, and the shimmering pearls, which she believes are reflecting the sunshine from the studio window. “It is extremely a lot from the life, with an actual vitality within the brush work. I went to Leighton Home to see the copy, and in distinction, it does actually appear to be a duplicate,” Christie says.
Buck doesn’t consider the prince truly met the mannequin, Anna Risi. She was initially married to a cobbler, and have become a very fashionable mannequin among the many English artists in Rome. She left the cobbler for a German artist, then left him for an English man, and when he deserted her or she deserted him, she returned to the German, after which disappeared from historical past. “She had fairly a life, she actually deserves an opera,” she says.
• The Edwardians: Age of Class, The King’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, London, 11 April-23 November
