Hello, I'm Lucy Worsley, chief curator at Historic Royal Palluses.

You're listening to our podcast that explores the history and stories of our six palaces.

These talks are a collection of some of our best live events.

I really hope you enjoy listening.

In this talk, we explore the role of Charles I

as a collector of masterpieces. As the first British monarch to collect art for

art's sake, he lay the foundations of today's sumptuous royal collection. Right, hello

everybody.

The psychology of collecting, or as I like to think of it, of repetitive acquisition syndrome,

but I've made that up.

It isn't a thing, but you can medicalize anything.

So, collecting, hunter-gathering, we've always been at it, but why? And I think maybe one of the reasons that is given to us that we do collect because of our roots in hunter

gathering, especially testosterone apparently in males, makes you want to gather and

order things, apparently. So that might have roots in hunter gathering. This is vague, isn't it?

This is because we have no real certainty about why people collect. So I've asked people why they collect,

and they tell me things like, oh, I just adore early English ceramics. Well, so do I. I can go

and see them at the V&A. I don't have to own them. So what is this about owning stuff that matters so much?

Well, apparently, if we own something, we can like it a little bit more.

So, why do we collect?

Is it because of our development as the human race, as we've developed,

as we've so-called civilized? I'm not sure if we are civilized. Or is it more about how we've

developed as individuals.

...