This evening I attended the vernissage at the European Economic and Social Committee’s Jacques Delors building of a photographic exhibition entitled  A Modern Royal Household. It is our first cultural event under the Danish Presidency of the Council of the European Union. The exhibition documents, through photographs and a video, the exceptional restoration and contemporary artistic decoration of Frederik VIII’s palace in Amalienborg, Copenhagen. The restoration was carried out between 2004 and 2010 to transform the palace into the new official residence for the Danish Crown Prince Couple. The Couple were deeply involved in the renovation project. They invited ten contemporary artists to decorate some of the rooms in the palace and the exhibition shows the artists and craftsmen working closely together. It was, in effect, a rediscovery of an old symbiosis. EESC President Staffan Nilsson welcomed Klaus Bondam, Director of the Danish Cultural Institute and curator of the exhibition, and an old EU hand, Danish Ambassador Poul Skytte Christoffersen (in the picture). This was a première for the exhibition, which will stay in the Committee until March and then go ‘on tour’. It is open to the public and is well worth a visit.