Next time Prince Harry visits granny at Buckingham Palace, he must drop in on this highly entertaining exhibition about Queen Victoria.

As he enters the exhibition, he’ll see a huge painting by Sir George Hayter of the Christening of the Prince of Wales, Victoria’s eldest son, at St George’s Chapel, Windsor, in 1842. All the godparents are there for the world to see – not something you can say about Archie Mountbatten-Windsor’s, whose identities were concealed earlier this month.

But then Queen Victoria was a master of PR. This new exhibition cleverly shows how she presented a new face of monarchy to the world – and how she remodelled Buckingham Palace in her own image.

George III bought what was then Buckingham House in 1761. But Victoria was the first monarch to live there properly – and the first to make it the monarchy’s headquarters. She moved in in 1837, three weeks into her reign, and promptly turned what had been a charming Queen Anne house into a mammoth royal palace.

Prince Albert – a highly artistic figure; his engraving tools are in the show – commissioned Edward Blore to remodel the palace’s huge façade (later refaced by Aston Webb). And – another PR coup – Albert cooked up the Buckingham Palace balcony, now such an integral feature of great royal occasions.