Thanks to a decade-long process of upgrading Buckingham Palace âs pipes and electrical systems, the Picture Gallery is temporarily being emptied of its many priceless artworks . Sixty-five of them, including paintings by Titian, Vermeer, and Rembrandt , will be displayed in a new exhibition called â Masterpieces from Buckingham Palace .â
As Smithsonian.com explains , itâs not technically the first time the public is getting a chance to see the art. Visitors are allowed to walk through the Picture Galleryâas well as 18 other State Rooms and the palace gardenâevery year between July and October. That said, itâs hard to spend much time with the paintings during such an expansive tour, and the room itself isnât optimized for studying them very closely. As Desmond Shawe-Taylor, official surveyor of the Queenâs pictures, told The Guardian , some of the artworks are even double-stacked, so you might have to crane your neck to appreciate the ones hung higher on the wall.
In other words, âMasterpieces from Buckingham Palaceâ is the first opportunity for people to see the paintings in a gallery setting, rather than as decorations in an already opulent palace. To say that these works deserve their own exhibition is something of an understatement; The Music Lesson , for exampleâa subtly suggestive depiction of a young lady and her music teacherâis one of only a few dozen surviving paintings by Johannes Vermeer . And Rembrandtâs 1633 portrait The Shipbuilder and His Wife is supposedly Queen Elizabeth IIâs favorite painting, though Shawe-Taylor declined to verify the long-held rumor.
According to a press release from the Royal Collection Trust, the exhibition will also include information about the history of the Picture Gallery and Buckingham Palaceâs impressive art collection. King George III and Queen Charlotte purchased Buckingham House back in 1762, and their son George IV hired architect John Nash to convert it into a palace about 60 years later. Since George IV was an avid art collector (he purchased more than half the paintings that will be featured in the upcoming exhibition), Nash developed the Picture Gallery for him.
âMasterpieces from Buckingham Palaceâ will open at The Queenâs Gallery in Buckingham Palace on December 4, 2020, and you can visit through January 2022.
[h/t Smithsonian.com ]
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