Henry Edridge, A.R.A.

Queen Charlotte was the youngest daughter of Duke Charles of Mecklenberg-Strelitz and his wife Princess Elizabeth of Saxe-Hildburghausen. In September 1761, when still only seventeen years old, she was chosen as spouse for the twenty-two year old George III, and arrived in England on 8^th September, speaking not a word of English. In the words of Horace Walpole ’she looks very sensible, cheerful and remarkably genteel’. They were married that evening in the Chapel Royal. During their long marriage they had fifteen children, thirteen of whom survived to adulthood. Most of Charlotte's children were born at Buckingham House, which George had bought in 1762. The Queen took a keen interest in botany and the arts, and was a talented musician. J.C. Bach was her music master and in 1765 the young Mozart dedicated six sonatas to her. She also owned a large library and took a great interest in Kew. In 1792 George bought Frogmore House in the grounds of Windsor Park, and this became a favourite haven for her and her daughters. She successfully kept apart from politics, except for the problems relating to the Kings illness. On her death all of her possessions were disposed of by auction, including drawings by Edridge some of which were bought back from Colnaghi by George IV in 1821.

Edridge did a number of drawings of George’s family in the years 1802-1805. On 20^th June 1802 Farington wrote that Samuel Lysons had told him that Edridge was at Windsor drawing the princesses ‘but is obliged to wait their time and has them not to sit more than an hour a day’.¹ This drawing of the fifty-eight year old Charlotte depicts her seated by the lake at Frogmore, where in 1819 Pyne notes ‘whole lengths portraits in whole’ by Edridge hanging in the yellow bedroom. The Royal Collection owns two later versions of this drawing, dated 1803 and 1804.

1. J. Roberts & C. Lloyd, George III and Queen Charlotte: Patronage, Collecting and Court Taste, London, 2004, p. 40