A Commonwealth History of Royal Gifts

King Charles III is Head of the Commonwealth - a free association of independent nations which today has 54 members. On Commonwealth Day 2024, join Rachel Peat Underhill, Curator of Decorative Arts as she traces the early origins of the modern Commonwealth through nineteenth-century royal tours and embassies to the British Court. Illustrated by lavish Commonwealth gifts in the Royal Collection, it will shed new light on rituals of gift-giving from across the globe. Tour diaries, historic photographs of the Royal Family and newspaper reports meanwhile reveal how Crown and Commonwealth were perceived - and conjured - through these important exchanges.