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Does Buckingham Palace have a cupboard for its tupperware? Is there a drawer full of randomly accumulated objects from screwdrivers to hair clips and phone chargers? Does it have a tin of biscuits with left-over Hobnobs abandoned at the bottom?
Much mystery surrounds the inner workings of Buckingham Palace, but the newly opened East Wing might answer some of these questions. Open to the public for the first time in its 175-year history, you probably won’t find a miscellaneous drawer lying around here, but you will be able to see porcelain lions, nine-tiered pagodas and a lotus-shaped chandelier.
Having spent five years restoring the wing full of King George IV’s 18th-century chinoiserie designs, the centre room which houses said lotus-shaped chandelier also leads onto the balcony. Yes, the balcony where the Royal Family does its best impression of ‘just smile and wave boys, smile and wave’.
So what else has The Royal Collection Trust done to spruce up the East Wing? Well, a team of curators and conservators has removed, cleaned and reinstated the 18th-century, hand-painted Chinese wallpaper in the Yellow Drawing Room, while an analysis of historic paint pigments was used to return the walls of the 240-foot-long Principal Corridor to their signature green.
If you’re not already in awe of the time and detail spent on the wing, perhaps the collection of paintings by Thomas Gainsborough, Sir Thomas Lawrence and Franz Xaver Winterhalter will grab your attention instead. There’s also the first official portrait of His Majesty by Jonathan Yeo hanging in the Ballroom.
While the wing is now open to the public, tours for this summer are already sold out. If you’re still keen to have a look, here’s a sneak peek of the East Wing.
Did you see that the UK’s first King Charles II postbox has been revealed?
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