Here at Buckingham Palace, the Queen’s Gallery is a hive of frantic industry, as the Royal Collection’s curators prepare for the most important show of the year. The floor is strewn with bubble wrap. Precious prints and paintings are stacked against the walls.

Art was a useful tool in reasserting the restoration of the monarchy Lauren Porter, curator

One of the curators, Lauren Porter, guides me through the maze. As she explains, this exhibition sheds fresh light on an era most of us hardly know about – the reign of Britain’s ‘Merry Monarch,’ Charles II.

"What’s particularly exciting about this exhibition is that it’s the first time that the Royal Collection is focusing on Charles II as a collector of art – showing how he used art to express his power," says Lauren. "Art was a useful tool in reasserting the restoration of the monarchy."

Like most British monarchs, Charles II remains familiar, if at all, through a few folkloric clichés: he hid in an oak tree to escape from Cromwell’s soldiers (hence all the British pubs called The Royal Oak); he had an eye for the ladies (especially ‘pretty, witty’ actress Nell Gwyn).

However his 25 year reign was also an era of lively creativity - not only in the arts, but in science too. "He had a wide range of interests," says Lauren. "It’s not all fun and games."

Exiled on the Continent, Charles II returned to Britain in 1660 after the death of Oliver Cromwell, the puritanical Lord Protector who’d executed his father, Charles I.

After the austerity of the Commonwealth, he ushered in an age of lavish display, reopening the theatres, which Cromwell had shut down.