The room behind Buckingham Palace’s famous balcony opens to the public next week, offering an insight into George IV’s love of oriental art and furniture.
The King was instrumental in allowing visitors access to the east wing of the royal residence for the first time, and nearly 6,000 tickets were sold out within hours of going on sale in April.
Caroline de Guitaut, valuer of the royal’s works of art, said: “It was Prince Albert’s idea to build a balcony at Buckingham Palace because he saw it as a way of giving the royal family a chance to interact with the people. And of course, in a sense, it continues to be used in exactly that way on important occasions.”
She added: “But the expression was used very early in the reign of Queen Victoria, from 1851 onwards, when troops from the Crimean War were being farewelled and welcomed on their return.”
The east wing of the palace was built between 1847 and 1849 to accommodate Queen Victoria’s growing family. The new building incorporated the former open, horseshoe-shaped royal residence.
To finance the building work, George IV’s opulent Oriental-style seaside palace, the Royal Pavilion in Brighton, was sold. Its contents, some of the finest ceramics and furniture from the Royal Collection, were moved to the east wing and served as inspiration for the Chinese-inspired decor of the main rooms.
They were brought in 143 shipments on artillery carts from Brighton, and although some items were loaned back to the Pavilion, important items such as 42 fireplaces, along with tables, chairs, clocks and vases, found their way into Buckingham Palace.
On tours of the east wing, which includes the palace’s state rooms, visitors can walk along much of the 73-meter-long main corridor and also visit the Yellow Drawing Room and the central room behind the balcony.
The Yellow Drawing Room features an oriental-style fireplace from George’s seaside pleasure palace, an ornate gilded curtain rod, and even some wallpaper from the pavilion that Queen Mary discovered in storage and hung at her request.
Victoria and her husband furnished the corridor with chairs, side tables, large pagodas and Chinese porcelain, including an incense burner in the shape of a Buddha.
The valuer of the King’s works of art said of the room, which runs the length of the East Wing: ‘It is essentially a blank canvas indeed, and I think that is probably what appealed so much to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.
“So they were able to really put their stamp on the interior and, what may come as a bit of a surprise to many people, incorporate these works which very clearly reflect the more exuberant and exotic tastes of George IV.”
Highlights in the central room include a recently restored glass chandelier in the shape of a lotus flower and two 18th-century Chinese imperial silk wall hangings given to Victoria by China’s Emperor Guangxu on the occasion of her Diamond Jubilee in 1897.
The public cannot access the balcony, but has a view of the mall.
Visitors with a standard ticket to the building’s state rooms can tour the 19 rooms used by the royal family for official receptions, and in the ballroom they can view the new portrait of the king by Jonathan Yeo, with its striking red background.
