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Detail showing decorated christmas trails on tables

Christmas in the Royal Collection

1988 Christmas Broadcast

The Queen's 1988 Christmas message, showing the Sobieski Hours ©

As an example of one of her favourite works of art in the Royal Collection, Queen Elizabeth II is pictured with the fifteenth century Sobieski Hours containing prayers and devotional readings. It is open to show one of the illuminations contained within. The queen said “The anonymous person who drew the pictures nearly five hundred years ago has included all the familiar elements of the Christmas story which we hear with such pleasure every year.”