The Lost Collection: Charles I and Whitehall Palace, A Digital Initiative

At the end of the 1630s Abraham van der Doort, keeper of the royal collection, compiled a remarkable inventory of Charles I’s pictures. Exceptional in scope and detail, the inventory offers a rare opportunity for insight into such a historic collection, with scrupulous attention paid to minutiae of provenance, attribution, size, material and description.

To coincide with the Royal Academy of Arts exhibition Charles I: King and Collector, Royal Collection Trust is launching a reconstruction of Charles I’s entire collection online. Collaborating with auction houses, dealers and public collections, it provides information for over 2000 artworks belonging to the collection. The website will also include a virtual hang of Whitehall Palace’s three Privy Lodging Rooms, where the King kept his most cherished paintings. This talk is therefore an opportunity both to introduce the project and revisit the recording of Charles I’s collection in light of this recent work.