King George III bought “Buckingham House” from the Duke of–you guessed it–Buckingham in 1761. The next George, in 1825, was persuaded by the designs drawn up by architect John Nash to turn it into an official palace. Nash designed most of its rooms as well as the daunting Grand Staircase, whose balustrade alone cost 3,900 back in 1828. Subsequent monarchs proceeded to stuff their noble abodes with 7,000 pictures (three times what Britain’s National Gallery has) and tons of furniture, porcelain, glass and sculpture, to create the greatest private art collection in the world.
Although some masterpieces, like Anthony Van Dyck’s “Charles I on Horseback” (1633), have never before been seen in public, Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures Christopher Lloyd says, “You’re not dealing with hidden treasures here.” Such sublimities as Jan Vermeer’s “The Music Lesson: A Lady at the Virginals with a Gentleman” (circa 1660) and Rembrandt’s “The Shipbuilder and His Wife” (1633) have been loaned out as often as a suburbanite’s lawn mower. But pictures, notes Lloyd, “are just a part of the comprehensive experience of being in the palace. It is a cumulative delight.” The giddiness will be induced, in large part, by such objects as Antonio Canova’s neoclassical marble sculpture, Parisian furniture from the same period by Weisweiler, Japanese lacquer work and the odd Sevres vase.
Lest the public think that it can, as one London tabloid put it, “Visit the set” of recent royal scandals, just 19 of Buckingham’s 600 rooms will be viewable. Proposed routes through the big house won’t let tourists get within cellular-phoning distance of the royal family’s private quarters. One tentative plan has visitors coming in through the south-side Ambassadors’ Entrance and climbing the Grand Staircase. They’ll proceed through the Guard Room and the Green Drawing Room to the Throne Room (where two Chairs of Estate are embroidered with the initials EIIR and P respectively). Then it’s on to the Picture Gallery (where about 50 paintings will be hung), the State Dining Room (which is roughly the size of a jai alai court) and the West Terrace (from which blushing brides Fergie and Di blew wedding-day kisses to the masses). The hoi polloi will leave, of course, through the back door, but their egress into the land of the commoner will be cushioned by a stroll among the queen’s flamingos in a 40-acre garden. (Any glimpses of nymphs and satyrs dressed like modern-day princes and princesses will be considered hallucinatory.)
One possible glitch in the scheme is the British Safety Council’s proclamation that Buckingham Palace’s inadequate supply of fire extinguishers and sprinklers makes it a “potential death trap” unsuitable for public tours. A spokesman for the royal family replied that changes were being made. And they’ll be expensive. Maybe that’s why formerly free tours of Windsor Castle will now cost 3.
