Information

Windsor Castle is the oldest and largest inhabited castle in the world. It has been the family home of British kings and queens for almost 1,000 years and is today one of the official residences of Her Majesty The Queen. The Castle’s State Apartments are open to the public throughout the year and are furnished with some of the finest works from the Royal Collection, many still in the historic settings for which they were first collected. The display reflects the changing tastes of the Castle’s royal occupants, and includes a number of Dutch and Flemish masterpieces from the collection. The group of paintings by Peter Paul Rubens in the King’s Drawing Room reflects an arrangement introduced by Queen Victoria, while the Queen’s Gallery is used to display paintings by Anthony Van Dyck, including the magnificent portrait of Charles I and his Family. The arrangement of royal portraits in the Queen’s Drawing Room includes works by Gerrit van Honthorst, Willem Wissing, and Hieronymus Janssens, while the King’s Closet houses an important collection of sixteenth century Northern European paintings, just as it did in the 1660s during the reign of Charles II. The State Apartments also contain a number of important decorative arts including cabinets by Gerrit Jensen, made for William III and Mary II.

Windsor Castle is also home to the Print Room, where the majority of the works on paper in the collection are stored in carefully controlled conditions. This includes over 700 Dutch and Flemish drawings, mainly of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, including large groups by Hendrick Avercamp and Jan van der Straet. The works on paper are available to researchers by appointment, and further information about the collection and requesting a research visit can be obtained through the Royal Collection Trust website or by emailing printroom@rct.uk.

Anna Reynolds, Deputy Surveyor of The Queen’s Pictures (May 2021)