Queen Charlotte and the Royal narratives of Boydell's Shakespeare Prints

Abstract

This case study focuses on an atlas-sized folio of prints depicting scenes from Shakespeare’s plays published by John Boydell to reproduce paintings exhibited at his Shakespeare Gallery on Pall Mall (1789-1805). Boydell’s project brought together Britain’s leading painters and engravers, and secured subscriptions from George III, Queen Charlotte and the Prince of Wales. The two volumes of the print folio open with reproductions of full-length portraits of George III and Queen Charlotte. Consequently, the folio shifted the public viewing experience for those who had already visited the Shakespeare Gallery into a more private and domestic mode, framing it through the presence of the monarch and his consort which structured the viewer’s encounters with the works, characters and narratives which follow. This essay explores the second volume of the folio, prefaced by Queen Charlotte’s portrait, in order to unpack the highly-gendered imagery of queens and royal children which dominates this volume