The Royal Collection of Satirical Prints in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Heard discusses the Royal collection of satirical prints in the nineteenth and tweentieth centuries. The sale of the majority of the satires in the royal collection to the Library of Congress in 1921 is well known, as is the importance of the collection to the study of the Golden Age of caricature. Less well studied is the history of the collection between the accession of Queen Victoria (r. 1837-1901) and its division under King George V (r. 1910-36) in 1921. Surviving documents and the satirical prints themselves demonstrate that the satires were not disregarded after the death of their most famous collector, King George IV (r. 1820-30), instead showing a continued engagement with the genre on the part of Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and the staff of the Royal Library.