Skip to main content
Masterpieces from Buckingham Palace

Masterpieces from Buckingham Palace

Current price: $25.00
Publication Date: January 23rd, 2021
Publisher:
Royal Collection Trust
ISBN:
9781909741737
Pages:
160

Description

In this beautifully designed book, Desmond Shawe-Taylor, Surveyor of The Queen’s Pictures, and Assistant Curator of Paintings, Isabella Manning, examine 65 of the most celebrated paintings from the Picture Gallery, which sits at the heart of Buckingham Palace.

With masterpieces by such artists as Vermeer, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Rubens, Titian, Jan Steen, Claude, and Canaletto, this publication offers new insights into these world-famous works of art. The authors encourage readers to look at the works in a new way and to consider how Claude paints a sky; how Rubens models the landscape through his use of color; and how Titian uses contrast to add gravitas to a portrait. Rather than re-treading the old boards of provenance and attribution, the authors seek to engage with different, perhaps riskier and more subjective, questions: asking not when were they painted and by whom, but why should we concern ourselves with them? A short introduction gives an account of the creation of the Picture Gallery and tells the story of the monarchs who curated this extraordinary collection of paintings and how the works entered the Collection.

About the Author

Desmond Shawe-Taylor is Surveyor of The Queen’s Pictures, Royal Collection Trust. His previous publications include Masters of the Everyday, The First Georgians, Dutch Landscapes, and The Conversation Piece.

Isabella Manning is assistant curator of paintings, Royal Collection Trust.