Music in the Royal Collection
Many members of the royal family were talented musicians
Design for the Music Room, Windsor Castle
dated 1794RCIN 918690
The Music Room played an important role in the lives of the royal family at Windsor. In 1788 the Princess Royal wrote that ‘a love of music to distraction runs through our family’.
Music-making was part of their daily routine from the earliest years of the reign. Little is recorded of the furnishing and use of this room, apart from the fact that it contained a harpsichord (possibly Handel’s own instrument), and that in 1804 the king intended to have Roubiliac’s bust of Handel (possibly RCIN 35255) placed on a bracket above the chimneypiece on the west wall.
This design shows the proposed placement of the organ in the Music Room. Until the nineteenth century, all grand houses and certainly palaces would be equipped with an organ to provide not just church music but to accompany chamber music.