Masterpieces from Buckingham Palace Exhibition

This winter, a selection of paintings from Buckingham Palace’s Royal Collection will be unveiled to the gallery audience for the very first time. This impressive exhibit will highlight masterpieces from celebrated artists such as Titian, Rembrandt, and Vermeer, made possible as the palace undergoes vital renovations.

Opening on December 4 and running through January 2022, Masterpieces from Buckingham Palace will showcase 65 paintings that are typically displayed in the Picture Gallery. Featured works include Rubens’s 1623 Self-Portrait and Titian’s Madonna and Child with Tobias and the Angel, circa 1537. “Visitors will be encouraged to consider the artists’ intentions, why the paintings were highly prized in their day, and why we now recognize these works as ‘masterpieces,’” a press release from the Royal Collection Trust states.

Notable pieces in this exhibition, such as Rembrandt’s The Shipbuilder and his Wife alongside the previously mentioned Rubens work, demonstrate remarkable techniques used by these masters to convey light and depth. In contrast, other works, including Johannes Vermeer’s The Music Lesson, reveal seemingly spontaneous scenes that belay their thoughtful composition. Other paintings present a vivid atmosphere that practically leaps from the canvas, like the boisterous revelry depicted in Jan Steen’s Interior of a Tavern, with Cardplayers and a Violin Player or the ethereal ambiance of Claude Lorrain’s Harbour Scene at Sunset.

The paintings featured in this exhibition are being temporarily removed from the Picture Gallery to make way for the palace’s Reservicing Programme, a ten-year initiative designed to upgrade essential services in the 18th-century structure, covering everything from lead pipes to modern electrical systems.

A complementary display will outline the history of the collection and the gallery itself. Initially opened to the public during Queen Victoria’s reign, when the royal family was absent, the Picture Gallery usually welcomes visitors during the annual Summer Opening of Buckingham Palace. However, this is the inaugural opportunity for these renowned pieces to be showcased in a long-term public exhibition, and therefore, advance arrangements are crucial.

For further details, please visit rct.uk.