Description
This room, at the north-west corner of Buckingham House, had originally been used as the Queen’s bedroom, but in the late 1760s it became her dressing room. It is shown by Wild soon after the completion of redecoration and refurnishing carried out from c.1812; this work involved brighter and richer colours, new curtains, carpets and upholstery, and bolder gilding. The carpet is particularly magnificent; it was probably a product of the Wilton or Kidderminster manufactories. This is one of the few carpeted rooms shown by Pyne: the King considered that carpets were potentially injurious to health, and his own apartments (on the ground floor of Buckingham House) were therefore uncarpeted. In the new decorative scheme the walls were hung with light blue silk, and a deeper blue velvet was used for the curtains and upholstery. The arrangement of the furniture - including a set of new giltwood chairs - suggests that the room may no longer have been used as a dressing room; the ‘dressing table’ - lit by a pair of King’s vases on torchères - between the windows is unusually high. Some of the paintings included in the earlier hanging plan survived in this room: for instance, the portraits of the Duke and Duchess of York (the future James and his first wife), used as overdoors on the east wall. However, all the landscapes shown here were recent introductions from the King’s rooms on the floor below; they included paintings by Poussin, Claude and Rubens. Catalogue entry adapted from George III & Queen Charlotte: Patronage, Collecting and Court Taste, London, 2004
Alternate title: 'The Blue Velvet Room, Buckingham Palace.'
Descriptive Medium: 'Pencil, watercolour and bodycolour', 'bodycolour, pencil, watercolour'
Image Licence
All Rights Reserved
Image Credit
© Royal Collection Trust
Location
Buckingham Palace, London, England
Country
England
Tags
Category
Buildings & Architecture
