King Charles Queen Camilla made a meaningful move after breaking royal tradition during the French State Visit.
The British Monarch and Queen Camilla toured a new exhibition of 70+ artworks from the monarch’s private collection, opening to the public at Buckingham Palace on Thursday.
The King's Tour Artists display in the Palace ballroom celebrates four decades of artists joining Charles on overseas tours.
As per the Palace, it includes the King’s own art piece, painted alongside John Ward.
Ward was the first artist the King invited to join him on tour, on the deck of the Royal Yacht Britannia during a visit to Italy in May 1985.
In an exhibition, the works of 43 different artists were picked by the King from more than 300 in his private collection.
Kate Heard, a senior curator of prints and drawings at the Royal Collection Trust said, "His Majesty is obviously a keen watercolour artist and a keen patron of the arts, so the exhibition celebrates His Majesty as a patron of the arts, but includes that representation of him working alongside a tour artist.”
Heard added, "On those early tours, His Majesty would often paint alongside those artists that were taken with him. As the pace of royal tours has increased, things have got busier. There's then less opportunity to do that."
Both the exhibition and its book counterpart, The Art of Royal Travel: Journeys with The King, were developed by the Earl of Rosslyn—Lord Steward and close aide to the King and Queen.
To note, King Charles move came amid he reportedly broke the royal tradition as he welcomed French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife at Windsor castle instead of Buckingham Palace.
It was reported that King was compelled to host the first state visit at Windsor due to ongoing renovations at Buckingham Palace.
