Coming 19 June 2025 - sign up for email alerts to purchase on publication day.

In 1985, King Charles III, then Prince of Wales, asked the painter John Ward to accompany him on an official tour to Italy to make an artistic record of the visit. In so doing, he began an inspiring tradition that celebrates its fortieth anniversary in 2025, with forty-two different artists having accompanied the King on sixty-nine official tours to ninety-five different countries worldwide.

This book relates the extraordinary stories of these visits and celebrates the work of the tour artists, who ranged from young students still at art school to celebrated artists whose work is exhibited at major galleries. Their recollections are revealed in a series of individual interviews, and their anecdotes, personal reflections and glimpses behind the scenes provide a fascinating insight into the unique essence of life on a royal tour.

The book is both a celebration of The King’s initiative to support and encourage artists and a unique and compelling account of this very special royal tradition. Sumptuously illustrated with some of the many hundreds of works produced by artists who were inspired by the King’s generosity and his unswerving commitment to the arts, the book honours the power of an artist to record what a photograph never can, in the incomparable setting of a royal tour.

Authors: The Earl of Rosslyn, Theresa-Mary Morton and Helen Rosslyn.

Published in association with Royal Collection Trust.

Hardback, cloth bound.

176 pages.

112 colour and 8 black and white images.

ISBN 978-1-7384878-8-2

25 x 22 cm.

Image copyright: John Ward, After-deck of HMY Britannia, 1985 © The Estate of the Artist; Warwick Fuller, Waratah and Eucalyptus, Australian National Botanic Gardens, 2024; Phillip Butah, Elephant Sanctuary, 2023; Paul Reid, Standing Man, 2004; Luke Martineau, Balsamand Palace, 2010; Susannah Fiennes, Two Yachtsmen on HMY Britannia, 1997. All photographs: Royal Collection Trust.