Edinburgh's Holyrood Palace Gallery to reopen with Georgian exhibition and £1 tickets for low-income families

Edinburgh's Holyrood Palace Gallery is set to reopen with a six-month Georgian exhibition from March 22, and £1 tickets for low-income families.

Reopening under its new name of The King’s Gallery, the art gallery at the Palace of Holyroodhouse relaunches its exhibition programme with Style & Society: Dressing the Georgians, exploring life in 18th-century Britain through the fashions of the day.   

Some of the exhibits set to be displayed at The King’s Gallery, Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh. | Sub

It will be the 40th exhibition to be held in the Gallery since it opened in 2002 and the first in 18 months while the Gallery underwent essential maintenance works. A new scheme of £1 tickets, available to those receiving Universal Credit and other named benefits, will launch with the opening of the exhibition.

Style & Society: Dressing the Georgians will bring together almost 100 works from the Royal Collection, including paintings, prints and drawings by artists such as Thomas Gainsborough, William Hogarth and their contemporaries.  After a successful run in London, new additions have been made with distinctly Scottish links. These include two depictions of George IV by Fife-born artist Sir David Wilkie, painted to mark the first visit by a reigning monarch to Scotland in almost 200 years. Also on display is a portrait by Louis Gabriel Blanchet of Bonnie Prince Charlie, showing the Jacobite leader as a defiant prince. 

Some of the paintings to be included in the Style & Society: Dressing the Georgians exhibition, including a painting of Bonnie Prince Charlie (top right) by Louis Gabriel Blanchet. | Sub

Speaking about the new exhibition, Anna Reynolds, curator of Style & Society: Dressing the Georgians, said: "Clothing and historical fashion can tell us an enormous amount about life in the Georgian period.

"It was a time of rapid change, including particularly momentous events in Scotland with attempts to restore the Stuart line to the throne and George IV’s visit north of the border – the first by a reigning monarch in almost 200 years."

As part of Royal Collection Trust’s charitable aim to ensure that as many people as possible can access and enjoy the Collection, the organisation is proud to launch a new scheme of £1 tickets for the exhibition, available to those receiving Universal Credit and other named benefits.

Anna added: "We are delighted to be launching accessible tickets with the opening of this exhibition, allowing more people than ever to learn about this exciting period in our history."

In addition to £1 tickets, The King’s Gallery will continue to offer a range of concessionary rates, while visitors who purchase standard tickets directly from Royal Collection Trust can convert them into a 1-Year Pass, allowing free re-entry for 12 months.