Burlington Bertie's Accommodation Choice: Rubens Hotel 39 Buckingham Palace Road, SW1W 0PS Rubens offers 4-star luxury in traditional Edwardian styling just yards from the entrance to Buckingham Palace. Its Old Masters and Library Restaurants offer award winning traditional English fare and vegetarian dishes. The 1911 building has an interesting history. Build originally to house debutantes from the Shires residing in London for their Coming-Out season and presentation at Court, (a royal tradition that lasted until the 1950's), it became the headquarters of General Sikorski, the Polish Prime Minister in exile, during World War II. Now upgraded and sumptuously refurnished by Red Carnation its new owners, the Rubens is once again increasingly popular with visitors and dignitaries attending court at Buckingham Palace. Find Another Hotel

This magnificently appointed gallery the west front of Buckingham Palace was originally designed by architect John Nash as the palace conservatory but converted by Queen Victoria into the palace chapel. It was seriously damaged by one of 16 high explosive bombs landing in Buckingham Palace and the grounds during the London blitz of 1940 when the German Luftwaffe unsuccessfully attempted to demolish the Palace and St. Paul's Cathedral. Now beautifully restored and refurbished into a handsome Art Gallery, it provides display space for some of the choicest pieces from the Royal Collection. A remarkable and wide-ranging collection of paintings, sculpture and artifacts acquired by the monarchy over 500 years and held in trust for the nation are on permanent display here.
Additional exhibitions to complement this display are mounted each year. Current and forthcoming scheduled exhibitions for 2011 and 2012 are:

Mythology. 15 April - 9 Oct., 2011.
The re-telling of classical Greek and Roman myths in painting, sculpture, furniture, decorative arts and works on paper.

Regency. 15 April - 9 October, 2011.
Marking the 200th anniversary of the Regency Act of 1811 and celebrating the avid collecting of the Prince Regent, the future George IV; the most prolific collector in British royal history, who also bought Buckingham House, enlarging it and converting it into a Palace. Highlights include paintings by Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Claude Lorrain and Stubbs, exquisite pieces of Sèvres porcelain, meticulously crafted miniatures and outstanding examples of chinoiserie furniture.

Dutch Landscapes. 15 April - 9 Oct., 2011.
42 remarkable works in the Royal Collection from the 'golden age' of Dutch painting are exhibited. They include landscapes by Jacob van Ruisdael, Aelbert Cuyp and Meyndert Hobbema. The ability of the Dutch School of painters to depict mood and emotion through the landscape of their homeland or the Italian countryside influenced the great British painters John Constable and JMW Turner.

The Heart of the Great Alone: Scott, Shackleton & Antarctic Photography. 21 October 2011 - 15 April 2012.
This exhibition of remarkable Antarctic photography by George Herbert Ponting marks the 100th anniversary of Captain Scott's ill-fated journey of 1910 - 12 to the South Pole which led to the tragic death of five of the team on their return from the South Pole. Hurley's extraordinary icescapes were taken during Ernest Shackleton's Polar expedition on Endurance in 1914-17, which ended with the heroic sea journey from Elephant Island to South Georgia. Both collections of photographs were presented to King George V and are today part of the Royal Photograph Collection.

Visitors and researchers can now access an ever increasing and invaluable e-gallery data base of paintings and artifacts held in the Royal Collection.

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