Surrounded by Art

To the left as you enter Clarence House via the Entrance Hall hangs this fine tapestry, The Formal Garden.

The famous John Piper paintings of Windsor Castle hang in each of the four corners of The Lancaster Room.

These watercolour views of Windsor were commissioned by George VI and Queen Elizabeth as a record of the Castle, in case of war damage.

"The series of images were part of a project called ‘Recording Britain’, and took Piper four years to complete," explains Kathryn Jones, Senior Curator of Decorative Arts at Royal Collection Trust.

"They are extremely evocative – often showing stormy skies or night-time views," she says.

Several more of Piper's Windsor Castle paintings can be seen in the Dining Room.

Highlights in The Morning Room include:

A Conversation Piece at Aintree (left), an oil on canvas painting, c.1927-1930, showing King George V with his stud manager F.H.W. Featherstonhaugh.

When Homer Nods: Portrait of George Bernard Shaw (right), an oil on canvas, 1915, by Augustus John.

Above the Morning Room fireplace hangs A Lady in a Pink Ballgown, painted by Walter Richard Sickert in 1941.

Also in the Morning Room hangs this oil on canvas portrait of a young Queen Elizabeth. Then Princess Elizabeth, Her Majesty was painted in 1933 by Philip de Laszlo.

To the right of Her Majesty's portrait is Claude Monet's painting, Study of rocks, the Creuse: 'Le Bloc'.

On either side of the double doors from The Library to The Morning Room are these portraits by Savely Sorine.

To the left is HRH The Duchess of York, showing the late Queen Mother in 1923, when she was still Duchess of York.

To the right, a portrait of Her Majesty The Queen as HRH The Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh.

In The Dining Room, at the head of the table, is this oil on canvas of Hector, Nero and Dash with the Parrot, Lory, painted by Sir Edwin Landseer in 1838.

Painted for Queen Victoria, it shows her cavalier spaniel Dash, and her rare Scottish deerhound Hector, with the greyhound Nero, who may have belonged to The Duchess of Kent.

The Lory parrot was a gift from Queen Victoria's uncle, Duke Ernest I of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

On either side of this portrait are four more of John Piper's Windsor Castle paintings.

On either side of the door are pictures by Hungarian-born painter Jakob Bogdani, both entitled Birds in a Landscape.

They depict birds from the aviary at Windsor, which was established by Admiral George Churchill, brother of The Duke of Marlborough.

Both paintings were purchased by Queen Anne, from Churchill's executors, after his death in 1710.