A Queen's Taste

When she was only five years old, the collector's passion seized Victoria Mary Augusta Louisa Olga Pauline Claudine Agnes, Princess of Teck. She began hoarding Christmas cards, and throughout a long and energetic life as Britain's Queen Mary, she kept collecting. Before her death last year at the age of 85, she had assembled one of the most splendiferous royal collections of objets d'art in history.

Last week, on her birthday, London's Victoria & Albert Museum opened an exhibition of Queen Mary's treasures.--some 3,500 items culled from Her Majesty's home, Marlborough House, ranging from a massive 18th century sideboard to a tiny, inch-high jeweled crown that tinkles God Save the King.

Royal Gifts. The show was, as the London Times noted, "almost as much the portrait of a great collector as [of a great] collection." Queen Mary's personality and taste were evident throughout the exhibition, from the lacy finery she wore on festive occasions (exhibited on dressmaker's dummies at the entrance) to the staggering array of bibelots that had caught the royal eye. There were finely fashioned items of Chinese jade, Chelsea porcelain, Battersea enamel, Neapolitan pique (tortoise shell or ivory inlaid with gold or silver), case after case of tiny, exquisite baubles, splendid examples of the jeweler's and goldsmith's art. Of small boxes alone --for snuff, beauty patches, or just for decoration--there were 550, plus 120 etuis, 150 scent flasks, 50 portrait miniatures and 50 small clocks and watches.

Many of the items were gifts exchanged among royalty. There was a whole case devoted to the works of the great Russian court jeweler, Peter Carl Faberge (TIME, April 6, 1953), including a resplendent Easter egg presented by Czar Nicholas II to his Czarina in 1914. The egg is made of a transparent mesh of platinum, gold and diamonds, contains a jeweled stand bearing portraits of the Czar's five children. Another Faberge masterpiece was a 3-in. grand piano of Siberian jade. The most valuable item in Queen Mary's collection: a Potsdam bloodstone box mounted with gold and encrusted with diamonds, supposedly a gift of Frederick the Great to the Empress Catherine the Great.

Some of her treasures Queen Mary got as gifts from royal relatives all over Europe, but most of them were prizes won in a long lifetime of stalking antique stores. Her Majesty's great green Daimler was a familiar sight parked in front of London shops. When she arrived, sometimes on less than an hour's notice, the dealer closed his doors, let the old lady roam through all crannies. Some dealers kept a special drawer for her, in which they put aside items of the kind she favored. Others, knowing her penchant for exploring, prepared their shops as for an Easter-egg hunt, with curios to a queen's taste hidden where she was sure to find them.

Celestial Grandmother. Queen Mary never haggled over prices, but she rarely overpaid. And she performed many acts of royal kindness for favored dealers. When one once tripped in the Queen's presence, she said: "I am sure you need glasses. I shall send you to my optician." Another dealer, who collected Chinese lion figures, got one as a present from Queen Mary every Christmas for 20 years; the last one arrived last Christmas, months after her death. It had been wrapped and consigned far in advance.

The old Queen was also an avid museumgoer, never missed an important show at the Victoria & Albert. She had strong ideas on how objects should be arranged and displayed, sometimes disputed the judgment of the museum director.

If she could have seen the show that opened at the Victoria & Albert last week (it will run through the end of 1954), Queen Mary would have had little to quibble about. Most of it was arranged just as she had displayed it herself. The result was an entrancing glimpse into the royal attic of the last Great Victorian of the British royal family. As one visitor wrote in the weekly Time and Tide: "I felt as though I had strayed into the Paradise of All Good Children, to enjoy on a perpetual Sunday afternoon the exquisite and unlimited treasures of some celestial Grandmother."

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