Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
One of the finest rooms here is the
Queen's Drawing Room
, decorated top to bottom
with trompe-l'oeil paintings depicting Queen Anne's husband, George of Denmark -
in heroic naval guise, and also, on the south wall, riding naked and wigless on the back
of a “dolphin”. Queen Anne takes centre stage on the ceiling as Justice, somewhat
inappropriately given her habit of not paying her craftsmen, including Verrio, the
painter of this room. After Anne's death in 1714, the Prince and Princess of Wales
(later George II and Queen Caroline) took over the Queen's Apartments, though they
hated the trompe-l'oeil paintings and hung Mantegna's works over the top of them.
In 1717, the couple fell out with the king and moved to Kew; the ceiling painting in
the
Queen's Bedroom
by James Thornhill predates the quarrel, with four portraits of a
seemingly happy Hanoverian family staring at one another from the coving.
he
Queen's Gallery
features one of the most ornate marble fireplaces in the palace -
originally intended for the King's Bedchamber - with putti, doves and Venus frolicking
above the mantelpiece; the walls, meanwhile, are hung with Gobelin tapestries depicting
Alexander the Great's exploits and lined with Chinese vases and Delftware.
22
Georgian Private Apartments
he
Georgian Private Apartments
begin with the rooms of the
Cumberland Suite
,
lived in by George II before his accession, then by his eldest son, Prince Frederick,
and redesigned for William, Duke of Cumberland, Frederick's brother and better
known as “Butcher Cumberland” for his ruthless suppression of the Jacobites in
Scotland. The rooms were decorated by Kent, who added Gothic touches to the first
two rooms and a grandiose Neoclassical alcove in the bedchamber.
Beyond here you'll find the tiny
Wolsey Closet
, which, although a Victorian
invention, gives a tantalizing impression of the splendour of Wolsey's original palace.
It's a jewel of a room - though at 12ft square it's easily missed - with brightly coloured
early sixteenth-century paintings set above exquisite linenfold panelling and a fantastic
gilded ceiling of interlaced octagons.
Next is the
Communication Gallery
, constructed to link the King's and Queen's
apartments, now lined with Lely's “Windsor Beauties”, flattering portraits of the
best-looking women in the court of Charles II. The
Cartoon Gallery
was purpose-built
by Wren to display the Raphael Cartoons - the originals are in the V&A, and what you
see are late seventeenth-century oil painting copies. Tapestries made from the cartoons
are scattered throughout William and Mary's apartments.
The next sequence of rooms is of minor interest, though they do include an excellent
Gibbons overmantle in the Queen's Private Bedchamber (which, unusually, could be
locked from the inside). Last of all, you enter the
Queen's Private Oratory
, used by
Queen Caroline for private worship - it's one of the few windowless rooms, hence the
octagonal dome and skylight.
William III's Apartments
William III's Apartments
are approached via the
King's Staircase
, the grandest of the lot
thanks chiefly to Verrio's busy, militaristic trompe-l'oeil
paintings glorifying the king,
depicted here as Alexander the Great. The
King's Guard Chamber
is notable chiefly for
its three thousand-piece display of arms, arranged as they were laid out in the time of
William III. William's rather modest throne still stands in the
King's Presence Chamber
,
under a canopy of crimson damask. The sixteenth-century Brussels tapestries in the
room were originally commissioned by Henry VIII for Whitehall Palace.
Further on, in the
King's Privy Chamber
,
there's a much grander throne used by
William, with a silk and gold lace canopy that still retains its original ostrich feathers.
The most impressive room here is the
Great Bed Chamber
, which boasts a superb
vertical Gibbons frieze and ceiling paintings by Verrio - just as you're leaving this floor,
you'll catch a glimpse of a splendidly throne-like velvet toilet. Ground-floor highlights
include a semi-nude portrait by Van Dyck of his mistress Margaret Lemon, in the East
