This room is the largest in the apartments added for Mary II to the north of Kensington Palace in the years around 1690. In this watercolour the east-facing windows light the line of royal portraits along the west wall. Zoffany’s portraits of the King and Queen were recorded in the Queen’s Gallery c.1785-90. Thereafter a number of changes were made in the furnishing of the gallery, including the introduction of the organ cabinet, shown here at the far end. This appears to have resulted from a royal commission in the 1740s; it was altered for George III and Queen Charlotte, probably in 1763; the six tall cabinets between the windows would have been introduced to Kensington with the organ cabinet.

The full-length portraits on the wall opposite the windows are clearly visible in this watercolour, from left to right they are Henry VIII after a design of Holbein (405871), Pourbus's Infanta Isabella (407377); an unknown woman by Gheeraerts (406024), Kneller’s Archduke Charles (404952), Van Somer’s James I (404446) and Anne of Denmark (405813), Pesne’s Duchess of Brunswick (403013) and Georg Desmarees's Elector of Bavaria (403012). Between the windows it is possible to make out the nearest double portrait of Frederick, Prince of Wales, with his sister, Princess Amelia, by Maingaud (404986).

Catalogue entry adapted from George III & Queen Charlotte: Patronage, Collecting and Court Taste, London, 2004