Mika Takimi, Treatment Conservation Manager at Historic Royal Palaces, explains how the team restored this royal artefact
In December 2014, Historic Royal Palaces was thrilled to be able to acquire a royal throne canopy, a much-desired addition to our collection. It will be installed this autumn in the King’s Presence Chamber at Kensington Palace, where it is believed a canopy hung during Queen Anne’s reign. Throne canopies were used by the monarch in the Presence and Privy Chambers of their palaces during formal audiences, when the sovereign would receive guests from a throne-chair raised upon a dais. They were also used in British embassies abroad with a portrait placed below to represent the absent monarch.
This canopy was identified as being from Queen Anne’s reign by its royal cypher; we think that this is the only survival from her reign and the earliest and most complete British royal canopy of state previously existing outside of the royal palaces. The crimson silk in the ‘Hampton Court pattern’ damask is richly embroidered with a large royal arms, and a suspended tester (canopy) in the form of a square cornice, supporting a tester cloth, hung with three valances (skirts) is also richly decorated with gold embroidered badges and silver-gilt fringes.
Strong documentary evidence suggests that this canopy was made by the same leading craftsmen who supplied very similar ones to Hampton Court Palace for King William III. This one was made for Ambassador Townshend in 1709, shortly after the act of Union with Scotland in 1707, when a red lion was included in the royal arms.
For the past 300 years, it has remained in private hands used over a bed; as a result, it was in a very fragile condition. The scale of the conservation project was daunting, even for Historic Royal Palaces’ team of expert textile conservator
