Since 1820, when George IV was crowned King, the lives and reigns of the Royal Family of Great Britain have been closely involved with Buckingham Palace, which used to be simply called Buckingham House.
George IV made the house the official residence of the monarch and set about decorating it in what he saw as a fitting style for a king. However, no one was more closely involved with its status and development than Queen Victoria, who was on the throne from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901.
As a Princess, Victoria’s strict upbringing instilled in her a sense of duty and decorum, but she had a strong and passionate character and enjoyed many of the things enjoyed by the ordinary wealthy girls of her time – riding, dancing, parties and fun.
Her childhood was spent mostly at Kensington Palace with her mother, the Duchess of Kent, and Baroness Louise Lehzen, who oversaw her education. Buckingham Palace was unlived in and neglected.
Although her uncle George IV first gave it its first magnificent splendour, Victoria was the first monarch to actually live in the Palace. George IV died before it was finished; his brother William IV hated it and tried to give it away as a barracks for the army, but Victoria saw its potential and revitalised it as the main London royal residence.
From the outset, the important events in Victoria’s life as Queen centred on Buckingham Palace. From there she married her cousin and consort Charles Brock, Prince Albert, and she gave birth to eight of her nine children there, as well as attending to affairs of state, holding parties and entertaining dignitaries from around the world.
Everything an artist wants you to know is already in the picture: it is simply a question of finding out what that is and (if you want to use it for further activities) what to do with it.
Once you have established what your pupils are looking at, you can often use a picture as a source for many different activities. In this resource, we have included lesson plans to help you do just this, but first of all we need to help pupils become picture detectives. For that, you can use these questions:
- What is in the picture? No guessing – just what can you see?
- What can you deduce from what’s there? What is happening? What kind of person or people are shown – age, gender, expression, dress? What kind of place is this – interior, exterior, long view, close up?
- What mood is the artist conveying? How does he or she achieve it? How do colour and light affect the picture? Are there any details that help?
- What techniques has the artist used? What is the object or picture made of? How was it made? What tools were used? Can you see any evidence of them?
- What does the image tell us about the time we are exploring – in this case, from 1837 1861 (Victoria’s accession to Prince Albert’s death).
- ‘Compare and contrast’ is an extremely useful tool when looking at objects and images: how are the images the same? How are they different? Where possible, we have introduced at least two pictures in each section to help develop this important technique.
The lesson plans are designed to build children’s understanding of the subject, but also to help you and them to think laterally. They are adaptable to any age group from Years 3 to 6 and are cross-curricular in content.