The galleries at Buckingham Palace opened to visitors earlier this summer, receiving a major shakeup of its display to expand the priceless art on display.
The most significant rehang in half a century nearly doubles the number of paintings on display and returns the room to a much more historically-accurate scheme.
Some 120 works from the Royal Collection now hang in the 47-metre gallery, including paintings by Rubens, Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Vermeer and Zoffany. The walls have been re-covered in emerald-green silk damask, replacing the peachy pink velvet installed in 1976, which had deteriorated after 50 years. The new silk took 875 hours to hang!
Anna Reynolds, Surveyor of The King’s Pictures, described the project as an ‘exciting and rare’ chance to significantly increase the number of world-class paintings shown to the public, in line with the Royal Collection Trust’s charitable aim of sharing ‘as much of the collection as possible’.
‘It continues the longstanding tradition of renovations and re-hangs in the Picture Gallery that have commonly taken place following a change of reign, and we are delighted to be able to share it with as many people as possible this summer,’ she added.
What’s new on the walls
The most eye-catching addition is Johan Zoffany’s The Tribuna of the Uffizi, which depicts the celebrated Florentine gallery crowded with masterpieces and with visitors studying and discussing them; works by Holbein, Rubens and Raphael are all identifiable within it.
It was commissioned by Queen Charlotte, who reportedly disliked its busy composition and never hung it in her apartments, but by 1841, it was recorded in the Picture Gallery, which makes its return particularly fitting.
Zoffany’s painting anchors a new display on the flourishing of British art in the 18th century, echoing Queen Victoria’s own contemporary hang of the 1840s. Alongside it are George Stubbs’s A Rough Dog, thought to depict George IV’s own pet, and Gainsborough’s portrait of the composer, Johann Christian Fischer, which is not believed to have hung in the room before.
The pictures are broadly grouped according to shared geography, period or subject matter, and will be changed out regularly as items are loaned across the world to other exhibitions.
Five paintings by Rembrandt, plus one attributed to his studio, have been brought together, and seven works by Rubens reunited.
The standout pairing is Rubens’s Self Portrait hung opposite his portrait of Anthony van Dyck, which is a nod to a real friendship, since Van Dyck joined Rubens’ studio as a teenager. It is also a recreation of history, as the two portraits hung together at Whitehall Palace in the 1660s; the palace burnt down just before 1700.
George IV’s collection of 17th-century Dutch pictures was among the finest in the world, and Vermeer’s Lady at the Virginals with a Gentleman, acquired by George III, remains in place. It is now joined by contemporaries who were equally celebrated in their day, including Gerard ter Borch, whose The Letter draws the eye to the silk satin of the sitter’s dress while leaving it deliciously unclear whether her message has been written or received.
Caravaggio’s influence runs through the Italian, French and Flemish groupings: his newly added The Calling of Saints Peter and Andrew hangs near Van Dyck’s Christ Healing the Paralysed Man and The Young Cardplayers by the Le Nain brothers. They join existing highlights including Canaletto’s 12 views of Venice, Frans Hals’s Portrait of a Man and Titian’s Madonna and Christ Child.
A room shaped by its occupants
The gallery was designed to show off George IV’s pictures as part of John Nash’s transformation of Buckingham House into a palace. The King died before the project was finished, and the first arrangement was in place by Queen Victoria’s accession in 1837. The walls have since been golden yellow, lilac, crimson and olive green (the last of which was retained for much of the 20th century) before the pink/peach of 1976.
Today the room is used to receive Heads of State and to host receptions for members of the public, and is seen by more than half a million visitors a year.
Also new is Jonathan Yeo’s large oil study of The King, made in 2023 for the Drapers’ Company portrait, the first official portrait completed after the Coronation. The striking red piece was recently gifted by the artist and now hanging in the adjacent Silk Tapestry Room.
Buckingham Palace is open until 27 September 2026, including access to the Picture Gallery and the latest exhibition on Elizabeth II’s wardrobe.
Those on Universal Credit and some other means-tested benefits eligible for £1 tickets. Book here.
