After several years of renovations the new and enlarged Queens Gallery opened in May 2002 to celebrate the Queens Golden Jubilee. It is now a very impressive structure not the small hole in the wall that it used to be. Not that I didn’t love that little whole in the wall and somehow for me this new structure though beautiful is quite cold and the staff much more formal than before.
The exhibit was entitled Royal Treasures and what a treasure it is. You come up the formal stairway and are greeted by a bust of Her Majesty. There was a young man stationed beside it who was more than happy to gush on about it, but I was more interested in getting into the gallery.
The first gallery, the Pennethorne Gallery has bright green walls that make a dramatic back drop for Van Dykes monumental equestrian portrait of Charles I. It grabs your attention as soon as you enter the room. Opposite it stands a magnificent boulle secretaire made of ash, oak, pine, brass, copper, tortoise shell ebony, rosewood etc. from the collection of George IV, I’m sure you can get the picture. A small room off this gallery contains a cabinet of miniatures including three by Holbein that are particularly beautiful. I have to admit that miniatures are a real favorite of mine.
The depth of the Queens Collection is obviously immeasurable. On the right wall you have Vermeer’s Lady at the Virginals with a Gentleman and Cranach’s Apollo and Diana and across from them is George de la Tours St. Jerome. In a second cabinet room are Grannies Chips the 3rd and 4th largest Cullinan Stones 63 and 94 carats. Also in this cabinet are the necklace that the Queen wore to her coronation and also her collection of Faberge. I am only touching on the surface of what was here. This is truly magnificence on a magnificent scale.
The Nash Gallery has bright red walls and again they are the perfect backdrop for the paintings chosen for display here. Hogarth, Copley, Stubbs, Zoffany, and Viger LeBrun. It is however Sir Joshua Reynolds portrait with the red jacket, Sr. Thomas Lawrence’s Pope Pius VII with his red cape and chair and Thomas Gainsborough’s Johann Christian Fisher in a maroon suit that really play to the room’s color. These three paintings are all on one wall for maximum affect.
There is a room of sketches that includes a DaVinci, a Michaelangelo and a Raphael. I was impressed. The only jarring moment came when confronted by the hideous Lucien Freud portrait of the Queen.
Even the bathrooms here are luxurious. Make sure you pay them a visit. The gift shop is extensive and expensive. This time I chose to look but didn’t buy.
This particular exhibit will be on through January 3, 2003. But if the past is any indication this is just one of many that the Gallery will have to offer.