Summer visitors to Buckingham Palace will find a dazzling redisplay of one of its most spectacular rooms, the 47-metre-long Picture Gallery. It has been rehung with twice as many masterpieces from the Royal Collection, including works by Caravaggio, Vermeer, Rubens, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Titian and Stubbs, many included in the hang for the first time or after many decades elsewhere in the palace.
The old hang had 63 paintings; the new display fits in 120, on new emerald green silk damask wall hangings. The denser hang echoes one of the pictures on display: Johan Zoffany’s view of the Uffizi gallery in Florence, which shows paintings hung frame-to-frame.
Anna Reynolds, surveyor of the King’s pictures, said in a statement that the rehang continues a long tradition of redisplays of the gallery, particularly after a change of reign: “This rehang is an exciting and rare opportunity to significantly increase the number of world-class paintings on display for visitors, in line with our charitable aim to share as much of the Royal Collection as possible.”
The colour of the walls reflects changing tastes and opinions on appropriate settings for paintings. They have been yellow, a fashionable Victorian lilac, crimson, olive green for much of the 20th century, and coral pink velvet from 1976.
The gallery was commissioned by George IV, who accumulated one of the finest collections of Dutch 17th-century paintings in the world, from the architect John Nash as part of his rebuilding of Buckingham Palace. George had died—leaving huge debts—by the time the work was finished, and his niece Queen Victoria was the first to use the gallery.
The hang includes Johannes Vermeer’s Lady at the Virginals with a Gentleman, acquired by George III, now joined by The Letter, by Vermeer’s contemporary Gerard ter Borch. The seven works by Peter Paul Rubens include a self-portrait and a portrait of his friend and former apprentice Anthony van Dyck, which are recorded as hanging together in the 1660s in the old Whitehall Palace.
A Young Man with a Falcon, a large painting originally bought by George IV as by Rubens, and now attributed to Jan van Boeckhorst, is back on the walls—and research continues after extensive conservation work revealed its true quality. It was in the original hang, and photographed in the gallery in 1931, but was taken off display when it became murky and discoloured. The conservation work removed layers of yellowed varnish and extensive overpainting and revealed the original free brushstrokes and luminous colours. The curators now suspect that George IV may have been right and it may genuinely be a Rubens.
Other spectacular paintings include five by Rembrandt and one from his studio, a Titian, a Caravaggio with characteristically stormy lighting, and 12 views of Venice by Canaletto.
A recent addition to the Royal Collection has been hung in the adjoining Silk Tapestry Room: a large study by Jonathan Yeo for his portrait of Charles III commissioned by the Drapers’ Company, the first official portrait of the new reign, presented by the artist.
This is the first major redisplay of the picture collection since the gallery reopened with a pared-down rehang after a 2020 refurbishment which made major improvements to lighting and climate control—the gallery had been freezing in winter and stifling in summer.
Buckingham Palace is currently undergoing a £369m refurbishment programme, which is due to be completed next year. It was announced last month that King Charles will not take up residence once the repairs are completed, instead remaining at nearby Clarence House.
Buckingham Palace is open to visitors from 9 July to 27 September.
