Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz - Interests and Patronage

Interests and Patronage

George III and Queen Charlotte were music connoisseurs and passionate admirers of George Frideric Handel; both had German taste, and gave special honour to German artists and composers.

In 1764 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, then aged eight, arrived in Britain with his family as part of their grand tour of Europe and remained from April 1764 until July 1765. The Mozarts were summoned to court on 19 May and played before a limited circle from six to ten o'clock. Johann Christian Bach, eleventh son of the great Johann Sebastian Bach, was then music-master to the Queen, and put difficult works of Handel, Bach, and Abel before the boy. He played them all at sight, and those present were quite amazed. Afterwards he accompanied the Queen in an aria which she sang, and played a solo work on the flute. On 29 October, they were in town again, and were invited to court to celebrate the fourth anniversary of the King's accession. As a memento of the royal favour, his father Leopold Mozart published six sonatas composed by Wolfgang, known as Mozart's Opus 3, and were dedicated to the Queen on 18 January 1765, a dedication she rewarded with a present of fifty guineas.

Queen Charlotte was an amateur botanist who took a great interest in Kew Gardens, and, in an age of discovery, when travellers and explorers such as Captain Cook and Sir Joseph Banks were constantly bringing home new species and varieties of plants, saw that the collections were greatly enriched and expanded. Her interest in botany led to the magnificent South African flower, the Bird of Paradise, being named Strelitzia reginae in her honour.

Among the royal couple's favored craftsmen and artists were the cabinetmaker William Vile, silversmith Thomas Heming, the landscape designer Capability Brown, and the German painter Johann Zoffany, who frequently painted the king and queen and their children in charmingly informal scenes, such as a portrait of Queen Charlotte and her children as she sat at her dressing table.

The queen also founded orphanages and a hospital for expectant mothers. The education of women was of great importance to her, and she saw to it that her daughters were better educated than was usual for young women of the day. However, she insisted that her daughters live restricted lives close to their mother, and refused to allow them to marry until they were well-advanced in years, with the result that none of her daughters had legitimate issue (one, Princess Sophia, may have had an illegitimate son).

In 2004, the Queen's Gallery at Buckingham Palace staged an exhibition illustrating George and Charlotte's enthusiastic arts patronage, which was particularly enlightened in contrast to that of earlier Hanoverian monarchs; it compared favorably to the adventuresome tastes of the king's father, Frederick, Prince of Wales.

Up until 1788, portraits of Charlotte often depict her in maternal poses with her children, and she looks young and contented. However, in that year her husband fell seriously ill and became temporarily insane. It is now thought that the King was suffering from a genetic metabolic disorder, porphyria, but at the time the cause of the King's illness was unknown. Sir Thomas Lawrence's portrait of her at this time marks a transition point after which she looks much older in her portraits. Indeed, the Assistant Keeper of Charlotte's Wardrobe, Mrs. Papendiek, wrote that the Queen was "much changed, her hair quite grey".