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The Guard Chamber, St James's Palace c.1818

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Date

c.1818

Description

A watercolour of the interior of the Guard Chamber, St James's Palace, showing a large room with a wooden floor and walls with displays of swords, rifles, and scabbards. In the middle of the room seated around a table before the fire are three Yeomen; another walks towards them. The watercolour was prepared for one of the plates in Henry William Pyne's 'History of the Royal Residences' (1816-19). Engraved by R. Reeve, the print was published on 1 June 1818.
Pyne's 'History of the Royal Residences' was a three-volume publication which encompassed a number of royal residences, including Windsor Castle (vol. 1), Buckingham House and Hampton Court Palace (vol. 2), and St James's Palace and Carlton House (vol. 3) presenting 100 hand-coloured engravings of exteriors and interiors accompanied by descriptive texts. The 100 watercolours which were engraved for the publication survive in the Royal Library; these watercolours are exactly the size of the image on the printed plates, and may perhaps have been intended as colour guides for the artists responsible for hand-painting the monochrome prints.
Descriptive Medium: 'Pencil, watercolour and bodycolour'