Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
A major exhibition showcasing some of the finest paintings in the Royal Collection will be displayed at The Queen’s Gallery, Palace of Holyroodhouse. Masterpieces from Buckingham Palace will bring together more than 30 spectacular works by artists such as Rembrandt, Rubens, Claude, Artemisia Gentileschi and Van Dyck to be enjoyed up close by audiences in Edinburgh.
The exhibition provides a unique opportunity to view these world-renowned paintings afresh in a modern gallery setting, away from the historic interior of the Picture Gallery at Buckingham Palace where they can usually be seen as part of the annual Summer Opening of the State Rooms. The more intimate display at The Queen’s Gallery will give audiences the chance to encounter each painting at eye level. Visitors will be invited to consider what makes a ‘masterpiece’, from the artists’ use of materials and composition to their evocation of the real world and the expressive quality of their works.
L: Pallas Athene, Parmigianino (1535); R: Judith with the Head of Holofernes, Cristofano Allori (1613); Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
The paintings will be arranged by school, beginning with a group of pictures created in Italy between 1530 and 1660. Several Italian works feature idealised female figures derived from the study of antique sculpture. These include Guido Reni’s Cleopatra with the Asp (1628) whose once-rosy skin seems to turn to cold marble before the viewer’s eyes, and Parmigianino’s Pallas Athene (1535), whose finely spun hair is as bright as the gold of her breastplate. In Judith with the Head of Holofernes by Cristofano Allori (1613), Judith’s faultless complexion contrasts with the grotesquery of her victim’s severed head.
Seascape with Jonah and the Whale, Gaspard Dughet (c.1653-4); Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
Two atmospheric landscapes painted in Italy will be on display in Scotland for the first time. The diffuse golden light and harmonious composition of Claude Lorrain’s A View of the Campagna from Tivoli (1645), is a world away from the ominous skies and crashing waves of Gaspard Dughet’s Seascape with Jonah and the Whale (1653-4), yet both demonstrate the expressive potential of landscape painting.
The exhibition will also contain a series of works created in the Low Countries between 1630 and 1680, they heyday of the so-called Dutch Golden Age. Scenes of everyday life, such as the leisurely card game depicted in Pieter de Hooch’s Cardplayers in a Sunlit Room (1658) are imbued with arresting realism through the artists’ command of perspective, colour and detail. Compositional devices such as the false window ledges in Rembrandt’s Agatha Bas (1641), Gerrit Dou’s The Grocer’s Shop (1672) and Jan Steen’s A Woman at her Toilet (1663), project people and objects into the viewer’s space, heightening the illusion of three-dimensionality.
Cardplayers in a Sunlit Room, Pieter de Hooch; Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
More than two thirds of the paintings in the exhibition were acquired by George IV, one of history’s most extravagant monarchs and a prolific collector of art. 2022 will mark the bicentenary of George IV’s visit to the Palace of Holyroodhouse in 1822. This was the first visit of a reigning monarch to Scotland for nearly two centuries and involved elaborate pageants organised by Sir Walter Scott. A series of talks and activities will take place at the Palace in August to bring this extraordinary event to life.
Masterpieces from Buckingham Palace will be at The Queen’s Gallery, Palace of Holyroodhouse from 25 March – 25 September 2022. For more information go to www.rct.uk.
