Charles Wild (1781-1835)
The Queen's Levee Room, St James's Palace. c.1816
Watercolour and bodycolour over pencil | RCIN 922164
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Large room, plain floor and ceiling. Large tapestries or frescoes, pictures over fireplace to right. 2 windows at far end with red curtains. One window gives access to the garden by an external staircase. A footman stands in the windowframe.
This watercolour was prepared for one of the plates in Henry William Pyne's 'History of the Royal Residences' (1816-19). Engraved by W.I. Bennett, the print was published on 1 August 1816.
Pyne's 'History of the Royal Residences' was a three-volume publication which encompassed a number of royal residences, including Windsor Castle (vol. 1), Buckingham House and Hampton Court Palace (vol. 2), and St James's Palace and Carlton House (vol. 3) presenting 100 hand-coloured engravings of exteriors and interiors accompanied by descriptive texts. The 100 watercolours which were engraved for the publication survive in the Royal Library; these watercolours are exactly the size of the image on the printed plates, and may perhaps have been intended as colour guides for the artists responsible for hand-painting the monochrome prints.
The only two paintings visible here can be identified from the 1819 inventory of St James's Palace: they are Luca Giordano's The Forge of Cyclops over the mantle (no longer in the collection) and a Danckert's landscape (402574) as the overdoor. -
Creator(s)
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Medium and techniques
Watercolour and bodycolour over pencil
Other number(s)
RL 22164
