Pietro Annigoni: The Portrait of Queen Elizabeth, Pt. 3

"From the moment that Queen Elizabeth appeared, dressed in white under a dark blue cloak, the robe of the Order of the Garter, everything went easily. Not that I was not over-awed and embarrassed at suddenly finding myself alone with the Queen of England. As she stood in front of me, probably expecting me to say where and how I wished her to pose, I was completely tongue-tied. Desperately uncertain of myself, I asked her to stand just as she was, turned away from the light and looking into the darkest corner of the room. I began to draw, conscious all the time of the precious minutes slipping away and knowing that the sketch I was making was valueless.

Suddenly - perhaps sensing my uneasiness - she began to talk casually in French. 'You know,' she said, 'when I was a child I used to spend hours in this room looking out of the windows. I loved watching the people and the cars down there in the Mall. They all seemed so busy. I used to wonder what they were doing and where they were all going, and what they thought about outside the Palace.'

Her words were like a searchlight lighting my way. I saw her immediately as the Queen who, while dear to the hearts of millions of people whom she loved, was herself alone and far off. I knew then that was how I must show her. I asked her to look out of the great window once more and I watched her face light up at the ever-changing scene she surveyed. I began to draw with new zest and at the end of the sitting, after the Queen had left and I was gathering up my sketches and materials, I felt that a great burden had been lifted from me. But there was more good luck to come that day. 

Walking through a long gallery, on my way out of the Palace, I saw in the shadowy distance a figure all in white that seemed to be floating towards me. Only when she came close did I realize it was the Queen without the Garter cloak. I stood aside to let her pass and she smiled and was gone. But in the second or two in which I glimpsed her eager young profile against the autumn evening light, she was momentarily transported in my imagination to the open air on a clear spring day."

To be continued

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