Buckingham Palace: Encyclopedia II - Buckingham Palace

The principal rooms of the palace are contained on the piano nobile behind the west-facing garden facade at the rear of the palace. The centre of this ornate suite of state rooms is the Music Room, its large bow the dominant feature of the facade. Flanking the Music Room are the Blue and the White Drawing rooms. At the centre of the suite, serving as a corridor to link the state rooms, is the Picture Gallery, which is top lit and 55 yards (50m) long. The Gallery is hung with works by Rembrandt, van Dyck, Rubens, and Vermeer, among many others. Other rooms leading from the picture gallery are the Throne Room and the Green Drawing Room. The Green Drawing room serves as a huge anteroom to the Throne Room, and is part of the ceremonial route to the throne from the guard room at the top of the grand staircase. The guard room contains a white marble statue of Prince Albert, in Roman costume set in a tribune lined with tapestries. These very formal rooms are used only for ceremonial and official entertaining.

Directly underneath the state apartments is a suite of slightly less grand rooms known as the semi-state apartments. Opening from the marble hall, these rooms are used for less-formal entertaining, such as luncheon parties and private audiences. Some of the rooms are named and decorated for particular visitors, such as the '1844 Room', which was decorated in that year for the State visit of Emperor Nicholas I of Russia. At the centre of this suite is the Bow Room, through which thousands of guests pass annually to the Queen's garden parties in the gardens beyond. The Queen uses privately a smaller suite of rooms in the north wing.

Between 1847 and 1850, when Blore was building the new east wing, the Brighton Pavilion was once again plundered of its fittings. As a result many of the rooms in the new wing have a distinctly oriental atmosphere. The red and blue Chinese Luncheon Room is made up from parts of the Brighton banqueting and music rooms, but has a chimney piece, also from Brighton, in design more Indian than Chinese. The Yellow Drawing Room has 18th-century wall paper, which was supplied in 1817 for the Brighton Saloon, and the chimney piece in this room is a European vision of what the Chinese equivalent would look like, complete with nodding mandarins in niches and fearsome winged dragons.

At the centre of this wing is the famous balcony, with behind its glass doors the Centre Room. This is a Chinese-style saloon enhanced by Queen Mary in the late 1920s, although the lacquer doors were brought from Brighton in 1873. Running the length of the piano nobile of the east wing is an immense gallery, modestly known as the Principal Corridor. It has mirrored doors, and mirrored cross walls reflecting porcelain pagodas and other oriental furniture from Brighton. The Chinese Luncheon Room and Yellow Drawing Room are situated at each end of this gallery, with the Centre Room obviously placed in the centre.

Visiting heads of state today, when staying at the palace, occupy a suite of rooms known as the Belgian suite, which is on the ground floor of the south-facing garden front. These rooms, with corridors enhanced by saucer domes, were first decorated for Prince Albert's uncle Léopold, the first King of the Belgians. King Edward VIII lived in these rooms during his short reign.