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The Hearse of Henry, Prince of Wales by William Hole, 1612 © The Trustees of the British Museum

The Shy Revolutionary

I have been fascinated by the eighteenth-century British radical Thomas Hollis ever since I came across his diary in the Houghton Library, America. It was very exciting, therefore, that one of my first projects at the National Portrait Gallery was helping with fundraising to buy a marble bust of Hollis by Joseph Wilton. If Hollis’s name isn’t familiar to you, it’s probably what he would have wanted: he preferred to be anonymous. Despite this reticence, the diary reveals a man who was tireless in attacking political corruption and defending civil liberties. …

By Clare Barlow, Assistant Curator

30 October 2012

The Hearse of Henry, Prince of Wales by William Hole, 1612 © The Trustees of the British Museum

Rediscovering Henry’s ‘body’

One of the most memorable visits I made during research for the exhibition was to see a distinctly dilapidated object at Westminster Abbey. Shortly after his death – probably from typhoid fever, at the age of 18 – an effigy of the prince was made to be carried on his coffin in his funeral procession in December 1612. It had originally consisted of a carved wooden body, padded out probably with straw inside a fabric ‘skin’, which was dressed in the robes he had worn when he was created Prince of Wales. The face and hands were probably made of wax, and the whole thing was regarded as so life-like that its first arrival at the Abbey elicited a huge outbreak of weeping among the mourners.…

By Catharine MacLeod, Senior Curator, 17th Century Collections

25 October 2012

Henry, Prince of Wales, by Isaac Oliver, c. 1610-12,The Royal Collection Photo: Supplied by Royal Collection Trust / © HM Queen Elizabeth II 2012

Marilyn Monroe – the British connection
Why does her image endure?

The gallery has been offered a number of touring exhibitions commemorating the life and career of Marilyn Monroe. With the fiftieth anniversary of her death approaching we decided we would generate our own display, more appropriate for the National Portrait Gallery, celebrating the star’s British connections. Although Monroe was an American actress, she was of course, a hugely popular international star and she had been photographed in New York in 1956 by one of the most celebrated British photographers of the twentieth century, Cecil Beaton.…

By Clare Freestone, Curator, Photography

17 October 2012

Henry, Prince of Wales, by Isaac Oliver, c. 1610-12,The Royal Collection Photo: Supplied by Royal Collection Trust / © HM Queen Elizabeth II 2012

In Search of the Lost Prince?

Over the last couple of years much of my time has been spent tracking down and researching objects associated with Prince Henry, the son of James VI of Scotland and I of England, the boy who, had he lived, would have become King Henry IX. Henry is now a largely forgotten figure, but in his lifetime, and for some time afterwards, he was seen as the ideal Renaissance prince.…

By Catharine MacLeod, Senior Curator, 17th Century Collections

11 October 2012