The Picture Gallery at Buckingham Palace

by Anna Reynolds, Surveyor of The King’s Pictures

Reading time: 6 minutes

The Picture Gallery runs through the centre of the first-floor State Apartments at Buckingham Palace. Originally planned by King George IV as a space to house his magnificent collection of paintings, it was designed by the architect John Nash and created by combining Queen Charlotte’s original suite of rooms into a space 47 metres long. George IV died before seeing the project to completion and it was not until the early years of Queen Victoria’s reign that it was able to function as a gallery.  

From the beginning, however, the Picture Gallery has been much more than a space to display art — it is also one of the Palace’s key reception rooms. Capable of accommodating several hundred guests, it is regularly used for banquets in support of organisations with royal patrons. It is also where people receiving honours assemble before investitures, and where special displays are put on during State Visits, with Royal Collection items selected to reflect the visiting country and highlight shared connections.

The magnificent State Rooms of Buckingham Palace, including the Picture Gallery, are also open to visitors each summer.

The Picture Gallery has never stayed the same for long. Since the 19th century, its look, layout and contents have been updated to match changing tastes, new ideas about displaying art, and the priorities of each new monarch. 

The ceiling originally incorporated a row of square lantern lights and two rows of circular domed lights that provided top‑lighting — then considered essential for viewing paintings — and this was supplemented by central chandeliers.  

There were also Carrara marble chimneypieces featuring medallions of famous artists (Titian, Dürer, Van Dyck and Leonardo da Vinci). The beautiful white marble is from the area surrounding the town of Carrara in Italy. These chimneypieces remain in the room today, showing the significance of the Old Master painting collection in this space. 

Edwardian Splendour and Early 20th-Century Changes

King Edward VII’s accession in 1901 ushered in a transformative phase of the Picture Gallery. The walls were painted red, a dado rail was added, and the carpet removed to expose the elaborate parquetry flooring.  

Additional paintings were introduced, increasing the total to 209 and reflecting an Edwardian preference for abundant displays. A group of Italian paintings was included for the first time. Photographs from the period show an extraordinarily dense hang — five tiers high in places — yet with the established convention of placing smaller works on the lower tier.

During the reign of George V and Queen Mary, the room underwent another major refurbishment. The royal couple took great interest in the designs, the most significant change being to the ceiling, which was lowered and transformed into a glazed arch.  

A decorative plaster frieze (decorative band) with floral designs was added just below the ceiling, and 362 yards of specially woven green silk damask (a type of patterned fabric) was attached to the walls. A revised but equally dense hang retained the importance of symmetry across the walls, as seen in photographs published in Country Life around 1931. 

The earliest colour photographs of the Picture Gallery date from the 1960s and reveal that the wallcoverings were still green, with co-ordinating seat furniture and rugs.

In 1976, Queen Elizabeth II oversaw another redecoration programme. Coral-pink coloured silk/cotton velvet was installed, and the frieze painted a pale pink to bridge between the white ceiling and the walls. A two‑tier hang was maintained, but with enhanced symmetry — four small pictures arranged around one or two larger central works in each bay. 

Paintings were grouped broadly by school, progressing from Dutch to Flemish to Italian and French. 

The smallest painting newly on display is Gerrit Dou’s exquisite A Maidservant Scouring a Brass Pan at a Window, only 16 cm high unframed, which has been recently conserved to reveal its intricate details. 

Another painting newly conserved for the redisplay is A Young Man with a Falcon. Once believed to be by Rubens when acquired by George IV, it is now attributed to Jan van Boeckhorst. Clearly visible in photographs from around 1931, inventories also reveal that it formed part of the original Picture Gallery hang of the 1840s. 

Many highlight paintings from the collection that were previously hanging here remain on view as part of the new display. These include Rembrandt’s Shipbuilder and his Wife, and Vermeer’s Lady at the Virginals with a Gentleman. 

The Lady at the Virginals with a Gentleman is one of only around 35 works by Vermeer that are known, making it a rare example of the artist’s work. It illustrates Vermeer's ability to turn a relatively simple everyday subject into something poetic through a carefully balanced composition and focus on the subtle play of light across the various surfaces. 

As a nod to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’s original arrangement, British 18th century works have been reintroduced, including Johan Joseph Zoffany’s Tribuna of the Uffizi.

Hanging in the room in the 1840s, the first decade of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’s reign, this fits especially well in the display today. It depicts a gallery filled with treasured artworks, and celebrates the enjoyment, discussion and appreciation of art — the very spirit the Picture Gallery continues to embody today.