Pietro Annigoni: The Portrait of Queen Elizabeth, Pt. 4

"Portrait of Queen Elizabeth"
by Pietro Annigoni

"The last sitting (I think it was the sixteenth - an extra one generously conceded by the Queen) took place at the end of February 1955. I worked on for a few days at the Palace and then decided to give the portrait its finishing touches at Tim Whidborne's studio in Chelsea. But before Tim and I could remove it, I had a message from the Queen saying that she and the rest of the Royal Family would like to see it before it left the Palace. So I continued to work on the cloak and the background until one morning it was suddenly announced that the Royal private view would take place after lunch that day.

At lunchtime I was quite happily drinking my coffee and munching a few biscuits in front of the portrait when I began to feel renewed doubts about the right eye, doubts that I had allowed to receded while there were so many other details to worry about. Now, virtually everything else was satisfactory, but the eye looked balefully at me, demanding attention. Naturally I was reluctant to start again on a detail that I had thought finished. Especially I was reluctant to try to do anything so vital a detail as an eye in the short time before the Royal Family would arrive. After several moments of panic, when I seemed to have destroyed the entire expression of the face, I knew that I had been successful. But the Queen appeared now to have a black eye! Normally this would not have alarmed me at all for oil-tempera becomes lighter in tone as it dries and the artist allows for this. Frantically, but vainly, I waved a  piece of cardboard over it - and heard a box of matches rattling in my pocket. I lit the matches one after another, holding each one for as long as possible and as close to the paint as I dared, and still had the last one in my hand when the Queen walked in, followed by her mother, sister, husband, and children.

Everyone showed a lively interest in the work. The Duke of Edinburgh asked questions about the technique and the Queen Mother told me that the imaginary landscape in the background reminded her of a part of Scotland she knew so well.The Queen herself said that I must be satisfied with my work because everyone in the Palace liked it, and it was clear that she was happy for the same reason.

This happy ending to my sojourn at Buckingham Palace made me sad to leave. I had even become attached to the Yellow Drawing-room, for it had been my studio for many weeks and I had had many bitter and sweet experiences in it. Looking back it is like a half-dream in which I took part in a light opera, with a military band playing off-stage (for the Changing the Guard ceremony) and a real Queen as the heroine."

To be continued

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