Pietro Annigoni: Portrait of Queen Elizabeth, Pt. 2

Photo of Pietro Annigoni by Russell Westwood

"Queen Elizabeth's first sitting was to be on the twenty-sixth of the month and, to my great delight, she had consented to come to the excellent studio I had found in Edwardes Square, Kensington for the sittings. This would have been a tremendous help to me but unfortunately a number of unexpected events conspired to prevent it. As soon as her decision had become known, my studio was overrun by newspaper reporters and photographers, and within a few days its address (and even my telephone number) was published in the Press. One newspaper even published a picture of an old studio chair in which it said the Queen would sit! That would probably have been enough for the Palace authorities to decide to cancel the arrangement. But something even more decisive followed.

In the afternoon of 8th October, while the newspaper men were still hovering around Edwardes Square, the Duchess of Devonshire was sitting for her portrait, with her back to the fireplace, when a piece of coal exploded in the grate and sent a shower of sparks into the studio. Fortunately she was not hurt but she certainly had a nasty shock, and I was very concerned about the whole thing. But there was still more trouble to come. The following day a thief had relieved me of three hundred pounds! I had a good idea who the villain was, but I had no proof and , at that time particularly, I wanted no trouble. In spite of that, both stories leaked out to the Press and so any chance that the Queen would come to the studio was finally killed. 

On the appointed day I was at Buckingham Palace half-an-hour early and was taken straight to the Yellow Drawing-room - a huge and magnificent room, which I later discovered was to be my studio. There Colonel Martin Charteris, the Queen's assistant private secretary, joined me and in reply to my question as to the procedure when the Queen arrived he explained simply: 'When I come here with Her Majesty to introduce you, just shake the hand that she will hold out to you and make a slight bow. That's all. Don't worry about the rest, because Her Majesty will put you at your ease immediately.' And that's how it was."

To be continued

(Excerpted from "Pietro Annigoni: An Artist's Life" by Pietro Annigoni, 1977.)