Loans from the Royal Collection
Current loans to exhibitions from the Royal Collection
Every year hundreds of objects, including paintings, drawings and decorative arts, are lent from the Royal Collection to institutions across the UK and abroad for both short- and long-term display. The loans programme, administered by Royal Collection Trust, enables new audiences to enjoy works of art from the Royal Collection, as well as helping us to increase our understanding of these works.
For information regarding loan requests, please click or tap on the button below.
See a selection of current loans from the Royal Collection below.
This exhibition showcases works of art created during the reigns of the Mughal emperors Akbar (r.1556–1605), Jahangir (r.1605–1627) and Shah Jahan (r.1628–1658). It explores the internationalist culture in the royal workshops, where Iranian artists and craftsmen worked alongside Hindustani masters. Two exquisite illustrations from the Padshahnamah – the official chronicle of the reign of Shah Jahan – are on loan to the V&A. They depict Shah Jahan holding court in the Hall of Public Audience in Agra, as a group of Europeans bearing gifts wait to be received, and Shah Jahan receiving his son, Prince Awrangzeb, at court in Lahore. Until 5 May 2025.
An exhibition at the Garden Museum celebrates the lost gardens of London seen through artists’ eyes from around 1600 to the present day. It focuses on gardens that have either vanished altogether, or that have changed beyond recognition. A drawing by Wenceslaus Hollar of the seventeenth-century riverside gardens of Arundel House has been lent to the exhibition. Until 2 March 2025.
A new exhibition at the Royal Academy, organised in partnership with Royal Collection Trust, focuses on the artistic rivalry between Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo in early 16th-century Florence. Both artists were commissioned to execute huge paintings in the Palazzo della Signoria (The Battle of Anghiari and The Battle of Cascina respectively), but neither were completed. Our main evidence for both projects is the sequence of preparatory drawings that the artists produced. Ten of Leonardo’s studies for the Battle of Anghiari are on loan from the Royal Collection. A drawing of Leda by Raphael is also on loan. It was probably made on a visit to Leonardo’s studio and shows his influence on the young Raphael. Until 16 February 2025.
Take a closer look at the drawings on loan in our Collection Online.
In this exhibition, the contemporary Guyanese-British artist, Hew Locke, has selected objects for display through which he examines Britain’s Imperial history and relationship with other cultures. Several objects from the Royal Collection form part of this exhibition, including a painting of Queen Victoria by Franz Winterhalter, a photograph of Duleep Singh by Dr Ernst Becker together with a watercolour of Singh by Queen Victoria, and a composite photograph by John Wesley Livingstone depicting the placement of a kiosk from Lucknow at Windsor Castle. Until 09 February 2025.
See all works on loan to the British Museum in our Collection Online
Leonardo da Vinci’s drawing, Designs for an equestrian monument, has been loaned to the Musée national de la Renaissance, as part of a new exhibition on equestrian portraiture in Renaissance France. Leonardo’s arrival at the French court in 1516 was a key moment in the development of this genre, as Leonardo had previously designed two equestrian monuments in Italy. The drawing on loan contains five sketches of a horse and rider, which were probably ideas for a monument to Francis I. Until 27 January 2025.
An exhibition at the Scuderie del Quirinale focuses on the painter, Guercino, and his work for the Ludovisi family (primarily Gregory XV and his nephew, Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi) while in Rome from 1621-23. The exhibition reconstructs the Ludovisi collection and assesses its influence on a new generation of artists in Rome. The two drawings on loan from the Royal Collection are studies for Guercino’s celebrated Aurora fresco in the Casino Ludovisi. Until 24 January 2025.
Six of Andrea Mantegna’s monumental paintings from the series The Triumphs of Caesar – considered to be amongst the finest achievements in Italian Renaissance art – have been loaned from the Royal Collection and can now be seen in a special display at the National Gallery. Other items from the Royal Collection are on long-term loan.
Take a closer look at Mantegna's paintings in our Collection Online
