Under Charles, more access to the Royal Collection?
September 26 2017
Not for the first time, suggestions have been made that Buckingham Palace might become more accessible to the public under a future King Charles III. The Sunday Times reported last week (sorry to be late to this one) that Charles is considering continuing to live at Clarence House, and that Buckingham Palace might become more of a museum.
Personally, I think anything which allows greater public access to the Royal Collection is a Good Thing. I suspect that Charles, on acceeding to the throne, and being an art lover, will make a significant gesture in relation to the Royal Collection, which will lead to much more of it being on public display. If you think of all the extraordinary artistic treasures that are in (for example) the picture gallery at Buckingham Palace (which, though small by comparison rivals anything in the National Gallery) it seems a shame that these paintings are only regularly publicly viewable when the Palace is open in summer and early autumn, and then only to those who buy a ticket. Might the next transformation of the Royal Collection involve the creation of a much larger, permanent exhibition space, within Buckingham Palace? Regular readers will know that I say all of this as an ardent admirer of everything the Royal Collection does already.
What do AHNers think?
