Royal appearances on the Buckingham Palace balcony have long been a focal point of state occasions: from Queen Victoria welcoming troops home from Crimea, to King George V celebrating the end of World War I, to attending the late Queen Elizabeth II’s Jubilee, the balcony has achieved iconic status.
But the palace rooms just behind the famous screen door have remained closed to the public since the east wing was built 175 years ago.
That was until now: Buckingham Palace will open the doors to the formerly private rooms of its newly renovated East Wing for the first time next week, offering exclusive tours for £75.
And dragons are everywhere here: on the porcelain, the cupboards, the nine-storey hexagonal tower, the ornately gilt curtain poles, the fireplaces and the ceilings.
Many of these unique ceramics can be credited to King George IV’s enthusiasm for Chinoiserie at the Royal Pavilion in Brighton in the 18th century. Artwork The furniture was brought into Buckingham Palace in 1850 when Queen Victoria sold her seaside villa and built the east wing for her growing family – a process that required 143 removals.
The palace’s £370 million, 10-year refurbishment programme saw around 3,500 objects removed from the east wing alone to make way for vital wiring and plumbing work, but rooms behind the facade are now being restored.
The balcony was the idea of Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s consort, to “connect with the people,” says Caroline de Guiteau, a royal arts inspector. The balcony itself is inaccessible, but a screen door through which many of the younger royals have peered during official events offers clear views of the Victoria Memorial, just below on the Mall. The screen door itself has more humble origins than the exhibit and is standard equipment throughout the palace.
The netted center room behind the balcony displays a newly restored glass chandelier modeled after a lotus flower and two 18th-century Chinese imperial silk wall hangings., It was a gift from the Chinese Emperor Guangxu to Queen Victoria in 1897 to commemorate her 60th anniversary on the throne.
The Yellow Drawing Room, where Elizabeth II sat for her portrait painter, is used for royal audiences and receptions. It was once lined with yellow damask, but Queen Mary replaced it with 18th-century hand-painted Chinese wallpaper depicting trees and birds. The wallpaper was expertly stripped, cleaned, and reinstalled, and was found by Queen Mary in the Royal Pavilion’s storage. Queen Mary loved the bright yellow background, but it has faded and become cream-colored over time. Visitors can also admire two hexagonal nine-tiered Chinese porcelain pagodas and a Qilin Clock incorporating two turquoise Chinese lions.
The Royal Pavilion’s interior “inspired the Chinese-style décor of the principal rooms of Buckingham Palace,” according to the Royal Collection, which holds around one million artworks and objects that have been gifted or purchased by kings and queens over more than 500 years.
The 240-foot-long Main Corridor runs the width of the palace and is crammed with royal paintings, including Gainsborough’s paintings, Russian paintings given to Queen Victoria by Nicholas I, and William Powell-Frith’s monumental depiction of the wedding of the future King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra at Windsor in 1863, which shows Queen Victoria, dressed in black mourning attire, peering down from a balcony two years after Albert’s death from typhoid fever.
One hallway is lined with black-lacquered cabinets by English craftsmen incorporating Japanese paneling; a richly decorated cylindrical desk was purchased from France after the French Revolution, when French royal objects suddenly became available on the market; and there’s an example of Japaning, the European imitation of East Asian lacquerware.
Tours of the East Wing, King Charles’ brainchild, begin on Monday and will allow only 20 people at a time. Tickets for the tours, which went on sale earlier this year, sold out within hours. Tours must be purchased in addition to a regular ticket to the palace’s State Rooms, where a dramatic new portrait of the king by Jonathan Yeo dominates the ballroom.
The 10-year refunding programme is being funded through a one-off increase in Government grants, with the Treasury previously approving £369 million to deliver the programme.
For more information about Buckingham Palace tours and summer openings, Royal Collection Website.
