Buckingham Palace

Buckingham Palace has been the London home of British monarchs since Queen Victoria moved in in 1837, and it works as an office as much as a residence, its balcony the backdrop to coronations and jubilees. For most of the year it is closed, but each summer the State Rooms open while the King is away.

Those rooms are hung from the Royal Collection, one of the largest and least-seen art collections in the world, held for the nation by the reigning monarch rather than owned outright. The long Picture Gallery holds Rembrandt, Rubens, Van Dyck, Vermeer and Canaletto, gathered by kings and queens over three centuries, above all the compulsive collector George the Fourth.

Visitors move through gilded rooms still used for banquets and investitures, so the paintings hang where they have always worked, as the backdrop to a functioning court.