Royal Art Collection

The Royal Collection is a vast collection of art assembled by monarchs over the last 500 years. It includes around 150,000 paintings by artists such as Rubens, Rembrandt, Mantegna, Titian and Raphael. The Collection's total value has been estimated at £10 billion.

The bulk of the Royal Collection was assembled by Charles I and dispersed throughout the country at the time of the Commonwealth. During the Restoration, Charles II was able to reassemble the majority of the collection, although a number of pieces were sold to European museums such as the Prado in Spain.

Who owns the Royal Collection?

The Royal Collection is "held in trust by the Queen as Sovereign for her successors and the nation, and is not owned by her as a private individual". In other words, it is owned by us - the people of Britain. It is unclear whether the royal family fully understand what this means, however; until relatively recently the Royal Collection website claimed that it was the private collection of the Queen.

Who has access to the Collection?

Around 3,000 objects in the collection are on permanent loan to museums. Other pieces are on display in former royal residences such as Hampton Court. Since 2002 the public have also been able to see a tiny proportion of the collection in a series of temporary exhibitions at the Queen's Galleries (in London and Edinburgh).

The rest of the Collection is stored away from public view and is notoriously difficult to access, even for academics and art historians. The only people with regular and unfettered access to the Collection are the royal family and their employees.

Who is responsible for the Collection?

The maintenance and care of the Royal Collection is the responsibility of the Royal Collection Trust (established in 1993 and chaired by Prince Charles).

As a charity, the trust receives no government subsidy and maintains the collection using only the income generated by visitors. This means that we are denied a stake in our national art collection and, unlike the works housed in the National Gallery, we have no way of ensuring proper standards of conservation and cataloguing are maintained.

Like the royal properties, the Royal Collection appears to be suffering due to lack of funds. Curators and art historians are concerned about the impact the Trust's lack of money is having on conservation. Few are prepared to speak out openly, however, for fear that the Trust will refuse to lend items to other museums and galleries.

There is disturbing evidence that the Collection is at risk due to the stubbornness of the royals. It appears that, as with the royal properties, there is fierce resistance to bringing the collection under full public ownership - and to the greater public access this would entail.

What does Republic believe?

The Royal Collection belongs to us, the people of Britain. As such, we believe the Collection should be brought under full public ownership and managed by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

We believe that the Collection - which contains some of the most important works in the history of Western art - should be catalogued and conserved to the highest possible standard, something the present arrangement clearly cannot deliver.

We also believe that the Collection should be as accessible as possible to the people of Britain. The Collection should be dispersed among our national museums and galleries, while the most important works should be displayed at the National Gallery and British Museum.