Victorian art: Royal Holloway Collection is now on exhibit at BYU

PROVO — Young, fair, dressed in velvet and jewels, they are everything young princes should be. And yet, the painting captures them at the precise moment they realize all is not well. The clasped hands, the sudden awareness in the eyes, the shadow on the stone staircase all portend a sense of doom.

When John Everett Millais painted "The Princes in the Tower" in 1878, all of Victorian England would have been familiar with the story of the two young royals who were slain by their evil uncle so he could take the throne as Richard III.

"It's a poignant story, beautifully painted," says Paul L. Anderson, curator of special exhibitions at Brigham Young University's Museum of Art. The painting is part of "The Royal Holloway Collection: Paintings from the Reign of Victoria," which is now at the MOA.

Victorian England would have been familiar with the story, but Britons would have looked at the painting of the two princes and seen something more, a loss of innocence, perhaps, or an acknowledgment that bad things can happen to good people.

That's what makes this collection so special, says Anderson. The paintings all tell stories, and they are stories we can relate to, even today. They work as both window and mirror, showing us what was in the hearts and minds of the people in mid- to late-19th century England, but they also reflect back universal truths and sentiments that touch us still.

"They are pictures that are easily understood at first glace," says Anderson. "But the longer you look at them, the more stories you see, the more interpretations you find."

The collection was put together between 1881 and 1883, as a result of one of the art world's great spending sprees. At the dying request of his wife, Thomas Holloway founded a women's college in London in 1879.

Because he knew little about women's colleges — this was the first one in England, after all — he consulted with various educators, including those at America's Vassar, explains Anderson. Someone there, or somewhere else, told him he should include a picture gallery. So he added that to his plans and started sending his brother-in-law to all the art auctions of the day. "He had a good eye and got good advice," says Anderson.