30 July 2025

Catherine, Princess of Wales has personally curated a new museum display.

Catherine, Princess of Wales has curated a museum display

The 43-year-old princess – who is the Royal Patron of the V+A – visited the new V+A East Storehouse in London last month and was given a behind-the-scenes tour by the facility’s curatorial team to find out more about why objects are collected and how they are cared for and displayed.

She then got to work with staff to select items from the museum’s collections for her own “mini display” called Makers and Creators, which will be exhibited until early next year.

Among the items chosen by the princess was a watercolour painting by Peter Rabbit creator Beatrix Potter – a distant relative of Catherine through her great-great-great uncle – and a childhood photograph album belonging to the author’s father, Rupert Potter.

The display also includes a costume from The Royal Ballet’s 1960 production of The Sleeping Beauty, which was worn by Diana Vere and designed bty Oliver Messel, a mid-20th century sculpture of hands by Clemence Dane, and George Henry Boughton’s oil painting titled A Woman Holding a Mirror and a Rose.

Finally, Catherine also selected a hand-quilted bedcover made in Wales in the 1830s, a 15th-century earthenware tile, a Qing dynasty porcelain vase from China and a Morris + Co furnishing screen from the mid-1880s.

The Makers and Creators exhibit curated by the princess – who has children Prince George, 12, Princess Charlotte, 10, and seven-year-old Prince Louis with husband Prince William – is intended to show how historic objects can influence a vast array of creative fields, including art, fashion, design and film, in the modern day.

It will be unveiled at the museum on Wednesday (30.07.25) and is one of over 100 displays that have been presented in the sides and ends of storage racking inside the facility.

V+A East Storehouse puts items that would otherwise be in storage on public display and includes more than 250,000 objects, 350,000 books and 1,000 special archives.

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