Her Majesty’s MASTERPIECES!

While Buckingham Palace is being refurbished the Queen’s Old Masters are on show in a new exhibition that lets you get closer than ever before to Rembrandts, van Dycks and a rare Vermeer...

They’re stripping the walls at Buckingham Palace. The Rembrandts, van Dycks and Canalettos have all disappeared from the magnificent Picture Gallery. The ornate room created for George IV in the 1820s has had half a million of us trooping through each year during the opening of the State Rooms, but it’s now a sad sight. Its coral pink walls are bare and only the fireplaces remain, with their old-fashioned electric fires still inside them.

But there hasn’t been a Thomas Crown Affair-style art heist. The paintings have been moved out for the first time in almost 45 years so that ageing pipes and wiring, and the gallery’s 200-year-old roof, can be replaced as part of the palace’s tenyear, £370m reservicing project.

The good news is that 65 spectacular masterpieces have been put on show in the Queen’s Gallery, attached to the palace. It’s the chance of a lifetime to get up close to some of the Old Masters in the Royal Collection, which are among the most famous paintings in the world. The exhibition will run through the whole of this year (you can visit online when the gallery is closed due to Covid restrictions), and you won’t have to crane your neck once you’re there.

‘In the Picture Gallery the paintings are hung two pictures high to make a grand impact,’ says Desmond Shawe-taylor, who curated the show and was Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures for 15 years until December. ‘But it means some of them are a long way away from you as you look up. Now we’re showing them in a modern gallery space with modern lighting and labelling, so the visitor can study each individual painting.’

Star of the show will be The Music Lesson, one of only 34 works attributed to the Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer. ‘They’re so rare, to have a good Vermeer puts you in the Super League – ours is superb,’ says Desmond. It’s now revered as a masterpiece, but how times change. The small painting was bought as part of a job lot by George III in 1762 but the picture was attributed to another artist and largely ignored.

‘It was one of 500 works bought from Joseph Smith, the British Consul in Venice,’ says Desmond. ‘He cannily became an agent for Canaletto, selling his paintings as souvenirs to British men passing through on their Grand Tour in the 18th century.

‘The Music Lesson was part of a mixed group of Dutch and Flemish

paintings in his collection. George was after the Canalettos, and this little picture was just part of the deal.

‘At the time it was attributed to Frans van Mieris and relegated to hang in Windsor Castle. If you’d mentioned Vermeer back then, nobody would have known who you meant anyway. It was only in the 19th century that a French critic rediscovered him. The picture was then brought to the Picture Gallery.’

There are many greats on show, from Titian to van Dyck, Frans Hals and Rembrandt, as well as Canaletto. There’s a chance to see paintings from elsewhere in the palace too. ‘Some wouldn’t show well in the Picture Gallery, like a favourite Rembrandt of mine, Christ And St Mary Magdalen At The Tomb, that usually hangs in the Queen’s Closet [also called the Queen’s State Audience Room],’ says Desmond. ‘It’s a bit too small for the Picture Gallery. It’s very dramatic with the sun rising as a metaphor for the risen Christ, but it’s slightly comic because there are angels who have just moved the stone from Christ’s tomb. They look like workmen resting, having a cup of tea.

‘Rembrandt demands your attention and his works will have a strong impact. But I hope people will enjoy looking at pictures you may usually walk by. So if you like Vermeer, have a look at how Pieter de Hooch uses light and space, and Jan Steen’s realism is extraordinary. I hope people will walk in and say, “Wow!”’ ■

CANALETTO The Bacino di San Marco On Ascension Day, c 1733-34. Acquired by George III in 1762 Canaletto transports us to one of the liveliest days in the Venetian calendar, the Wedding of the Sea on Ascension Day. The red and gold boat that dominates the right-hand side of the picture carries the Doge, the ducal umbrella and standards showing he is on board.

Desmond Shawe-taylor at the new exhibition

JOHANNES VERMEER The Music Lesson, early 1660s. Acquired by George III in 1762 Vermeer chooses an ordinary if elite subject and imitates it with astonishing fidelity. He discovers a beauty in this ordinariness – in the fall of light on a plaster wall or the smooth volume of a ceramic jug – and his use of intensified colour gives every surface the quality of a precious material. He also gives a glimpse of himself at his easel in the mirror.

REMBRANDT VAN RIJN Christ And St Mary Magdalen At The Tomb, 1638. Acquired by George IV in 1819, when Prince Regent Mary Magdalen finds Christ’s empty tomb before dawn, and supposes the man standing nearby with a spade, sun hat and pruning knife is a gardener. She then recognises the figure as Christ, who, at the exact centre of the panel, offers redemption to the sinner who turns to the light.

SIR ANTHONY VAN DYCK Thomas Killigrew And William, Lord Crofts, 1638. Acquired by Frederick, Prince of Wales, in 1747 Sketchy and unfinished looking, yet brilliant, this would have been painted for Killigrew (on the left), who is melancholic after the death of his wife, which is alluded to in the broken, vaguely scrubbed-together column. It has a fresh, lively, ‘I’ve just brought this thing into being’ look.

CLAUDE LORRAIN Harbour Scene At Sunset, 1643. Probably acquired by Frederick, Prince of Wales. First recorded at Buckingham House in 1785 This is an absolutely exceptional picture by Claude, whose work is quite easy to walk past without looking at properly because it’s so subtle. But look closely and the frame is like a window that puts us in the harbour. You can hear the waves, smell the sea and feel the last warmth of the day... he kickstarts our imagination.

REMBRANDT VAN RIJN Portrait Of Agatha Bas, 1641. Acquired by George IV, in 1819, when Prince Regent Sensual and moving, this was painted as one of a pair, with the other one of her husband. She feels very real, and there is a false frame through which her hand extends towards us, projecting into the ‘real’ space of the viewer.