Kensington Palace, Hampton Court Palace, and the Tower of London, 29–31 October 2017
Caroline of Ansbach (1683–1737), Augusta of Saxe-Gotha (1719–1772), and Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1744–1818), three Protestant German princesses, became variously Princess of Wales, Queen Consort, and Princess Dowager of Great Britain. Recent research has explored how in fulfilling these roles they made major contributions to the arts, the development of new models of philanthropy and social welfare, the promotion and support of advances in science and medicine, as well as trade and industry, and the furthering of imperial ambition. While local contexts may have conditioned the forms such initiatives took, their objectives were rooted in a European tradition of elite female empowerment.
This symposium, Enlightened Princesses: Britain and Europe, 1700–1820, will bring together eminent academicians and museum scholars to investigate the role played by royal women-electresses, princesses, queens consort, reigning queens, and empresses—in the shaping of court culture and politics in Europe of the long eighteenth century.
Papers will explore the following themes:
• Royal women as political agents
• Royal women: networks and conversations
• Royal women as patrons of art and architecture
• Royal women and the crafting of image
• Royal women: engaging with nature and technology
The symposium will take place 29–31 October 2017 at Kensington Palace, Hampton Court Palace, and the Tower of London. The programme will include special tours of the Enlightened Princesses exhibition at Kensington Palace, followed by two full days of lectures, themed panels, and discussions at Hampton Court Palace and the Tower of London.
The fee for attending the conference is £100. Reduction are available for a limited number of students on application to the symposium organiser. The symposium organiser can be contacted at [email protected].
Tickets can be booked here
Co-organised by Historic Royal Palaces, the Yale Center for British Art, and the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, London, in association the exhibition Enlightened Princesses: Caroline, Augusta, Charlotte, and the Shaping of the Modern World, on view at Kensington Palaces, 22 June – 12 November 2017.
