The Royal Collection at Kensington Palace

The Royal Collection at Kensington Palace

The regular displays at Kensington Palace are rich with works from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, reflecting the Palace's role as the home of William and Mary during this period.  The King's Gallery contains a number of Italian artworks, including the Four Season series of sculptures by Camillo Rusconi, a rare example of Roman Baroque sculpture within the Royal Collection. 

A series of rooms explores the childhood of Queen Victoria at Kensington Palace, and includes a number of pieces from the Royal Collection, including a cradle and dolls' house, as well as a book of her sketches.

Life Through a Royal Lens
4 March – 30 October 2022

Life Through a Royal Lens explores the relationship between the royal family and photography from the nineteenth century up until the present day. Important loans from the Royal Collection demonstrate Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’s early and pioneering engagement with the new medium, as well as the keen interest that later generations of the royal family, including Queen Alexandra and King George VI, showed in practising photography personally. Royal Collection contributions also include some of the most widely recognisable royal portraits of the last two centuries, such as the photograph known as ‘The Four Generations’, depicting Queen Victoria and her immediate successors, and Cecil Beaton’s striking image of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in Garter Robes, taken in 1968.

Other items from the Royal Collection are on long-term loan to Kensington Palace. Items on display in Life Through a Royal Lens can be found in the Temporary Exhibition Room tabs below.

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