© Royal Collection Trust
The Royal Collection Trust has announced the opening of new exhibition, The Edwardians: Age of Elegance, from 11 April to 23 November 2025.
The Edwardians: Age of Elegance will explore the lives and tastes of two of Britain’s most fashionable royal couples – King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, and King George V and Queen Mary – from their family lives and personal collections to their glittering social circles, global travels, and spectacular royal events.
The first Royal Collection Trust exhibition to explore the Edwardian era will bring together more than 300 items – almost half of which will be on display for the first time – including fashion, jewellery, paintings, photographs, books, sculpture and ceramics. Visitors will see works from the Royal Collection by many of the period’s most celebrated names, including Carl Fabergé, Frederic Leighton, Edward Burne-Jones, Laurits Tuxen, John Singer Sargent, Olive Edis, Philip de László, William Morris, Oscar Wilde and Edward Elgar.
Kathryn Jones, Curator said, “The Edwardian era is seen as a golden age of style and glamour, which indeed it was, but there is so much more to discover beneath the surface. This was a transition period, with Britain poised on the brink of the modern age and Europe edging towards war. Our royal couples lived lavish, sociable, fast-paced lives, embracing new trends and technologies. Yet, in their collecting, we also see a need to retain tradition and record the rapidly changing world around them, as if to preserve a fading way of life. The outbreak of World War I shattered their world, marking the end of an age and forever changing the face of monarchy.”
Displays will evoke the fashionably cluttered interiors of the royal couples’ private residences at Marlborough House and Sandringham House, where decorative objects and family photographs cover every surface. Examples will include a Cartier crystal pencil case set with diamonds and rubies, on show for the first time, and more than 20 items by the Russian jeweller Fabergé, including a blue enamel cigarette case featuring a diamond-encrusted snake biting its tail, given to Edward in 1908 by his favourite mistress as a symbol of eternal love. The British royal family was introduced to Fabergé by Alexandra’s sister Dagmar, the wife of the Tsar of Russia, and they became avid collectors.
Passionate patrons of the arts, the Edwardians explored new artistic movements such as Aestheticism Art Nouveau, and Arts and Crafts. This is reflected in their collections, which include a copy of Oscar Wilde’s Poems, personally inscribed by the author, and an early edition of the first book printed by William Morris’s Kelmscott Press. In 1902, Edward founded the Order of Merit to recognise contributions to cultural, scientific or military life. Recipients included Sir Edward Elgar and the physicist Sir J J Thomson, and a portrait of each was drawn for the King, a tradition that continues to this day.
The royal family also embraced the new medium of photography as an art form to capture the world around them. Visitors will see works by famed photographers of the era, including female photographers Mary Steen and Alice Hughes, and photographs taken by Alexandra, using portable Kodak cameras to capture official events and family moments.
Four years into George V’s reign, war broke out, and the glitz and glamour of the Edwardian age ended abruptly. The royal family collected works that recorded and honoured the sacrifices made by so many during the ‘Great War’ and its aftermath – including haunting wartime landscapes by Olive Edis, Britain’s first official female war photographer, and Frank O. Salisbury’s painting showing the unveiling of the Cenotaph on 11 November 1920. By the end of the conflict, a more restrained and dutiful monarchy had emerged: a monarchy shaped for the 20th century.
Click here to discover more about the upcoming exhibition.
