Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1977.14.37
Gallery Label:
After King George III was permanently disabled by insanity in 1811 (his youthful bust by John Van Nost the Younger is displayed nearby), his eldest son and heir, the Prince of Wales (1762-1830), was invited by Parliament to assume the position of prince regent. Following the old king's death in 1820, the prince regent was finally crowned King George IV. The new king's reign was characterized by a gradual decline in the effective political power and prerogatives of the crown, and by inexorable movement toward the great Reform Act of 1832. George IV was greedy, spoiled, manipulative, lecherous, foolish, extravagant, and stubborn. But in his heyday during the Regency period, the king was, perhaps more than any of his Hanoverian predecessors, a bold, daring, and brilliant patron of the visual arts and of architecture. Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2005
