Royal Collection art loaned to Hull Ferens Art Gallery

A Rembrandt masterpiece is among four paintings from the Royal Collection being loaned to the Ferens Art Gallery in Hull.

The Shipbuilder and his Wife by Rembrandt van Rijn will go on show at the gallery from April during Hull's year as UK City of Culture.

Works by Hans Holbein, Canaletto and Sir Anthony van Dyck will also go on display.

The council said it was "fantastic news for the Ferens and its visitors".

A fifth item, Queen Victoria's jewel cabinet, is also being loaned to the Hull gallery. The pieces will be on display at different stages from now until 2021.

Kirsten Simister, curator of art at the Ferens, said the gallery was "thrilled".

"We are enormously excited that the UK City of Culture year brings a painting by Rembrandt to Hull to for the first time.

"It's a hugely significant work painted during the artist's late 20s, at which time he was at his most successful and fashionable," she said.

"Its subject matter complements Hull's maritime heritage and linked to this the Ferens' acknowledged strength in Dutch 17th Century art."

Jonathan Marsden, director of the Royal Collection Trust, said: "Following the great success of our exhibition Ten Drawings by Leonardo da Vinci: A Diamond Jubilee Celebration at the Ferens in 2012, we are very happy to be continuing our relationship with the gallery until 2021, providing further opportunities for the people of Hull to experience and enjoy the Royal Collection."

On show in 2017 - Rembrandt van Rijn: The Shipbuilder and his Wife, 1633

Rembrandt's famous double portrait depicts master shipbuilder Jan Rijcksen, who was a shareholder in the Dutch East India Company, and his wife Griet Jans. He created this work during the height of his success as a portrait painter.

It will be on show at the Ferens until 28 August 2017.

2018 - Hans Holbein the Younger: Sir Thomas More, 1526-7

Holbein's portrait of the Tudor politician and author of Utopia has been held in the Print Room at Windsor Castle. Holbein stayed in More's house in Chelsea when he first arrived in England in 1526.

2019 - Sir Anthony van Dyck: Charles I, 1635-36

Charles I commissioned this portrait for the sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini in Rome, who was to create a marble bust of the king. The three views of Charles show the fashion at the time for men to wear their hair longer on the left.

2020 - Ludwig Grüner for Elkington, Mason and Co.: Jewel Cabinet, 1851

This large-scale jewel cabinet, designed in the form of a large casket, was commissioned by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. It portrays the prince and six of their children, along with the British Royal and Saxe-Coburg coats-of-arms.

2021 - Canaletto: A Regatta on the Grand Canal, 1733-4

This artwork by the renowned 18th Century painter depicts a race of one-oared light gondolas along a stretch of the Grand Canal towards the Rialto in Venice.