Unseen royal items – including a Faberge cigarette case given to Edward VII by his mistress (who was Camilla’s great grandmother) – set to go on display in Buckingham Palace

A Faberge cigarette case given to King Edward VII by his favourite mistress – an ancestor of Queen Camilla – will go on display for the first time at Buckingham palace next spring.

It is among a treasure trove of royal mementos, many on display for the first time, in a new exhibition, The Edwardians: Age of Elegance, which will run at the King’s Gallery.

The show will delve into the family lives, personal collections, global travels and glittering social circles of two of British history’s most fashionable royal couples, Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, and King George V and Queen Mary.

And it will bring together more than 300 items – almost half previously unseen outside of the Royal Family – including jewellery, fashion, paintings, photographs, sculptures, ceramics and books by famous figures such as Cartier, Oscar Wilde, Sir Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris.

Among 20 Faberge pieces will be a famed blue enamel Art Nouveau cigarette case featuring a diamond-encrusted snake biting its own tail, which Edward VII received from his mistress Alice Keppel in 1908, with the unbroken serpent a symbol of her eternal love. Alice Keppel is Camilla’s great-grandmother.

Remarkably, after Edward died in 1910, Queen Alexandra – whose husband’s many affairs were no secret to – returned the case to Mrs Keppel as a memento.

Equally astonishingly, Mrs Keppel gave the case back to Queen Mary twenty-five years later, in 1936, ensuring that it would remain in royal ownership.

The British royal family were introduced to Fabergé by Alexandra’s sister Dagmar, the wife of the Tsar of Russia, and became avid collectors.

Franz Xaver Winterhalter, King Edward VII when Prince of Wales, 1864

Prince Edward was the eldest son of Queen Victoria and in 1863 married Princess Alexandra of Denmark – theirs was the first royal wedding to take place at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle – ushering in a glamorous new era for the royal family.

Queen Victoria was still mourning Prince Albert, but Edward and Alexandra established their own vibrant court, filled with contemporary art, opulent balls and society events – a lifestyle later continued by their son, the future King George V, and his wife Queen Mary.

George V and Princess Victoria Mary of Teck wed in 1893 and, like Edward and Alexandra, surrounded themselves with fashionable society figures known as the Marlborough House Set.

Curator Kathryn Jones said: ‘The Edwardian era is seen as a golden age of style and glamour, which indeed it was, but there is so much more to discover beneath the surface.

‘This was a period of transition, with Britain poised on the brink of the modern age and Europe edging towards war.

‘Our royal couples lived lavish, sociable, fast-paced lives, embracing new trends and technologies.

Attributed to R. & S. Garrard, ‘Love Trophy’ Collar, 1901 which will also be on display

Cartier, Pencil case, c.1910 which will also be on display

‘Yet in their collecting we also see a need to retain tradition and record the rapidly changing world around them, as if to preserve a fading way of life.

‘The outbreak of World War I shattered their world, marking the end of an age and forever changing the face of monarchy.’

Visitors to the exhibition in The King’s Gallery at the Palace from April will see dazzling jewellery up close including Alexandra’s Dagmar necklace, a wedding gift from the King of Denmark, and Mary’s Love Trophy’ Collar necklace, on show for the first time.

Stylish Alexandra was named by Vogue as ‘the legitimate head of fashion throughout the British dominions’.

Displays will evoke the fashionably cluttered interiors of the royal couples’ private residences at Marlborough House and Sandringham House, where decorative objects and family photographs covered every surface.

A previously unseen Cartier crystal pencil case set with diamonds and rubies will be exhibited, alongside a personally inscribed copy of Oscar Wilde’s Poems and an early edition of the first book printed by William Morris’s Kelmscott Press.

Both couples also collected works by the great contemporary artists of the period, such as a previously unseen study of Sleeping Beauty by the Pre-Raphaelite artist Sir Edward Burne-Jones, and Charles Baugniet’s After the Ball, a Lady in a Ballgown Asleep on a Sofa.

The painting, on public view for the first time in more than a century, depicts the exuberance of the era, with a society beauty resting on a blue sofa, still dressed in her ballgown.

Jules Diderikson, The Dagmar Necklace, 1863

Phillips Bros. & Son, Brooch, 1863

The royal family also embraced the new medium of photography, and the exhibition will include images by pioneering female photographers Mary Steen and Alice Hughes, as well as photographs taken by Alexandra, using portable Kodak cameras to capture official events and family moments.

These include a ever-before-seen photograph of Edward in fancy-dress as a knight of the Order of Malta, at a ball celebrating Queen Victoria’s 1897 Diamond Jubilee, attended by 700 guests in historical costume.

All four royals travelled further than any family members before them, collecting objects, receiving gifts, and employing tour artists and photographers, as well as capturing their own memories.

Visitors will see items from their travels on five continents, including an Egyptian scarab brooch given to Alexandra by Edward following his tour of the Middle East in 1863; Alexandra’s handwritten notes, watercolours and snapshots from her visit to Norway in 1893; and an embroidered hanging of a eucalyptus tree, given to George and Mary by ‘the ladies of Adelaide’ during their 1901 Australia visit.

Four years into George V’s reign, war broke out, and the glitz and glamour of the Edwardian age came to an abrupt end.

The royal family began to collect works that recorded and honoured the sacrifices made by so many during the ‘Great War’ and its aftermath – including haunting wartime landscapes by Olive Edis, Britain’s first official female war photographer, and Frank O. Salisbury’s painting showing the unveiling of the Cenotaph on 11 November 1920.

By the end of the conflict, a more restrained and dutiful monarchy had emerged: a monarchy shaped for the 20th century.

The Edwardians: Age of Elegance is at The King’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, from 11 April to 23 November 2025.

It is organised by The Royal Collection Trust, the charity which overseas the priceless and historic Royal Collection of arts and antiques held in trust by the sovereign on behalf of the nation.