Buckingham Palace Road, SW1A 1AA

Phone:

020-7766 7300

Website:

www.royalcollection.org.uk/visit/the-queens-gallery-buckingham-palace

Opening times:

2 January - 24 July 2015: daily 10:00-17:30
(last admission 16:15)
25 July – 27 September 2015: daily 09:30-17:30
(last admission 16:15)
28 September - 31 December 2015: daily 10:00-17:30
(last admission 16:15)
A typical visit lasts between 1 and 1hour 30 minutes.

How to get there:

Tube/Station: Victoria/Green Park

Entry fee:

Admission charge

Additional information:

Shop (free entry)

The Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace, with its separate entrance on Buckingham Palace Road, is a permanent display space for changing displays and exhibitions of objects from the enormous and outstanding Royal Collection. The original gallery was built in 1962 on the site of the bomb-damaged private chapel. Discreet, small and inadequate, it has recently undergone a major redevelopment (John Simpson & Partners, 1998–2002) which has tripled the display space. The new classical revival gallery, with echoes of Nash and Soane, has a welcoming Doric portico, but interiors of an elaborate fussiness. From the light, double-height entrance hall, with friezes of Britain’s patron saints, visitors should keep straight ahead for the staircase hall, lined with green columns, and the tall and imposing staircase, with its balustrade of bronze and alabaster lamps, which leads up to the seven display galleries.

^{The Royal Collection}

The Royal Collection is one of the finest picture collections in the world, formed by Britain’s monarchs over the centuries from Henry VIII onwards. Many works were part of the exceptional collection of Charles I, a great connoisseur and lover of art, who bought part of the renowned Gonzaga collection of pictures, employed the great van Dyck as his Principal Painter, and owned works by Giulio Romano, Tintoretto, Titian, Raphael and Rubens, among many others. It was Charles I who purchased Raphael’s important ‘Acts of the Apostles’ cartoons (now in the V&A) as well as Mantegna’s Triumphs of Caesar (at Hampton Court). Following Charles I’s execution his collection was dispersed by the Commonwealth government. While some works were eagerly purchased by international bidders, and have now found their way into the great national museums of Europe, many items were either bought back or returned to the restored Charles II by loyal supporters and constitute an important part of the royal picture collection today. The collection also includes major work by British artists; fine Canalettos which entered the collection during the reign of George III; and one of the world’s best collections of 17th-century Dutch pictures, including Vermeer’s A Lady at the Virginals with a Gentleman and Rembrandt’s Agatha Bas. Other highlights include Lorenzo Lotto’s Andrea Odoni; works by Dürer and Holbein, and drawings by Leonardo da Vinci. The Royal Collection is rich in other areas. Also displayed are important items of furniture, sculpture, porcelain, silver and gold, miniatures, jewellery and Fabergé and other decorative arts objects.

Displays constantly change, and works from the Royal Collection are also shown at other royal residences in and out of London, as well as at properties administered by Historic Royal Palaces (chiefly Hampton Court Palace and Kensington Palace).