Surveyor of the Queen's Works of Art

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Not to be confused with Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures.

The office of Surveyor of the King's/Queen's Works of Art in the Royal Collection Department of the Royal Household of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom is responsible for the care and maintenance of the royal collection of works of art owned by the Sovereign in an official capacity — as distinct from those owned privately and displayed at Sandringham House and Balmoral Castle and elsewhere.

The office dates from 1928, and has only been full-time since 1972. Sir Lionel Cust, Surveyor of the King's Pictures, had been responsible for works of art from 1901 to 1927.

The current Surveyor, Sir Hugh Roberts, KCVO FSA, was appointed in 1996. He is also concurrently Director of the Royal Collection, for which he chairs a management committee of professional curators and administrators, including Jonathan Marsden, LVO, Deputy Surveyor of the Queen's Works of Art since 1996, and Desmond Shawe-Taylor, Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures.^[1]

[edit] List of Surveyors of the King's/Queen's Works of Art

Sir Hugh Roberts, KCVO MA FSA 1996-
Sir Geoffrey de Bellaigue, GCVO MA FBA FSA 1972-1996
Sir Francis J.B. Watson, KCVO MA FSA FBA 1963-1972

Sir James Mann, KCVO MA BLitt FSA FBA 1946-1962
Lieutenant-Colonel Lord Gerald Wellesley, 1936-1943
Sir Cecil Harcourt-Smith, KCVO 1928-1936
Sir Lionel Cust 1901-1927 (also Pictures)

[edit] References

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Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2006)

^ Management. The Royal Collection. Retrieved on 2008-05-22.

[edit] External links

"They're changing art at Buckingham Palace", Telegraph.co.uk, 2002-02-11. "It has gone from being run by one man and a dog - well, two part-time, unpaid surveyors of paintings and "works of art" - to being a self-financing charitable trust. It has a staff of 30 curators and restorers, including three surveyors, of whom Hugh Roberts, surveyor of the Queen's works of art, is also overall director, and has an obligation to open the collection to the public. A far cry from the early Fifties when the Queen's first surveyor of pictures, Anthony Blunt (apparently rather a good surveyor, apart, of course, from being a former Soviet spy) ..."