Prince Frederick's Barge
Designed by William Kent, built by John Hall, carving by James Richards (Kent 1685 to 1748) · 1731 to 1732
A river boat covered in gold leaf is not something you see every day. This long, slender barge was built in seventeen thirty two for Frederick, Prince of Wales, the eldest son of George the Second, to carry him on the Thames between the royal palaces and the pleasure gardens of London. It was rowed by twenty one watermen in scarlet livery, and the prince and his guests sat in the cabin at the stern, a little house of carved and gilded panels with windows on all sides so that everyone on the riverbank could see them.
The design is by William Kent, the most fashionable architect and designer of the age, and the carving by James Richards, master carver to the Crown. Walk slowly along the hull and pick out the details: mermaids and dolphins, shells and scrolls, the prince's feathers, and at the bow a figure of a golden mermaid rising from the water. Kent's drawing for the barge still exists, and the finished boat follows it closely. Notice how light the construction is, a rowing shell for a prince, built for speed as well as show, since the royal barges raced each other and the watermen were proud of their strokes.
Frederick never became king; he died in seventeen fifty one, and the barge passed to his son George the Third and then to his descendants. Queen Victoria was the last monarch to use it, on the Thames in eighteen forty nine, and it came to the museum in nineteen fifty one. It sits in Neptune Court beside a collection of other river craft, and it is the finest surviving state barge in the country, a reminder that for centuries the Thames was London's grandest street.
Did You Know? The barge was rowed by twenty one watermen in scarlet coats, and the prince's family last used it under Queen Victoria in eighteen forty nine.
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