Royal Collection Trust has announced that following His Majesty The King’s Accession, The Queen’s Galleries at Buckingham Palace and the Palace of Holyroodhouse will become The King’s Galleries.
The two galleries show changing exhibitions of works of art from the Royal Collection, one of the largest and most important art collections in the world. The Royal Collection is held in trust by the Sovereign for his successors and the nation, and Royal Collection Trust aims to promote access and enjoyment through exhibitions, publications, loans and educational programmes.
The gallery in London stands on the site of what was once Queen Victoria’s private chapel, which was destroyed in an air raid in 1940. At the suggestion of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, the ruined chapel was redeveloped as a gallery for the Royal Collection in 1962. It was redesigned and expanded between 1997 and 2002.
The gallery in Edinburgh was built between 1999 and 2002, in the shell of the 19th-century Holyrood Free Church and Duchess of Gordon’s School at the entrance to the Palace of Holyroodhouse.
Both galleries were opened in their current form by the late Queen as part of the Golden Jubilee celebrations in 2002. They have since welcomed approximately five million visitors to exhibitions of works from the Royal Collection, with recent examples including Leonardo da Vinci: A Life in Drawing, Style & Society: Dressing the Georgians, and the current exhibition Holbein at the Tudor Court.
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