Art, Passion & Power: The Story of the Royal Collection - Season 1

In the first episode, Andrew marvels at the works acquired by the great founders of the Royal Collection, Henry VIII and Charles I. Henry VIII tried to overwhelm with magnificence, and deployed the most essential rule of royal collecting - that great art projects power. For Charles I, art was a way to compete with other kings through taste, and Andrew reveals how this doomed monarch became the greatest royal collector in British history.

Andrew tells the story of the Royal Collection's remarkable resurrection, following its fortunes from Charles II through to the 18th century and the enlightened purchases of George III. This is when some of the Queen's greatest treasures were collected - a magnificent silver-gilt salt cellar in the form of castle, kept in the Tower of London, a gold state coach, adorned with cherubs and tritons, and masterpieces by Vermeer, Canaletto and Leonardo da Vinci.

In this third episode he has reached the age of the Romantics: the flamboyant George IV who created so much of the visual look of the modern monarchy, and Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, for whom collecting was an integral part of their happy marriage.

In the final episode of his history of the Royal Collection, Andrew Graham-Dixon explores how royal collecting has changed since the days of Queen Victoria.

This is a story of the British royal family's remarkable survival, while elsewhere monarchies crumbled in the face of world wars and revolutions. But it is also an age when women - both queens and consorts - firmly made their mark on the Collection.