In the black and white photograph, four women with their newborns in their arms smile at the photographer. These four young mothers who look like they came straight out of an episode of mad Menare, in the center, Queen Elizabeth, holding young Edward, seated at her feet, her sister, Princess Margaret, holding her daughter Sarah, standing, in the background, Princess Alexandra, the Queen’s cousin, and, at left of the queen, Catherine, Duchess of Kent.
It was Anthony Armstrong-Jones, Earl of Snowdon, Margaret’s first husband, designer and photographer, who took this photograph in 1964, to thank the royal obstetrician, John Peel, who had given birth to the four young mothers.
Edward, who we see as a baby in the photo, now Duke of Edinburgh, is the youngest of Queen Elizabeth’s four children, born after Charles (1948), Anne (1950) and Andrew (1960).
“Dear Lilibet”
The photo is shown with a handwritten letter from Princess Margaret asking “her beloved Lilibet” to sign a copy of the photo, “in memory of these two extraordinary months of motherhood.”
The photograph, taken in 1964 and previously unpublished, is shown on the occasion of an exhibition at Buckingham Palace. Royal portraits: a century of photography.
The exhibition traces the evolution of royal portraits through 150 photographs and letters from the Royal Collection, from 1920 to the present.
Immerse yourself in the life of the royal family
It brings together photographs by Cecil Beaton, Annie Leibovitz and David Bailey. Some are well known, others less so, and some, like this 1964 photograph, are being shown to the public for the first time. This exhibition, which mixes official and more intimate portraits, offers a vision of the life of the royal family.
“The royal collection contains some of the most significant photographs of the royal family, taken by the most famous portrait painters of the last hundred years,” highlights the exhibition curator in the Times.
More recent photographs also appear in this exhibition, such as the portrait of Princess Kate taken by fashion photographer Paolo Roversi on her 40th birthday.
The exhibition, as specified by the Times, includes a section on the history of retouching carried out on photographs of members of the royal family. A photo of the Princess of Wales, surrounded by her children, and retouched with her hand recently caused a scandal in the United Kingdom.
An official portrait of King Charles was just presented on May 14. It is a 2.6 meter by 2 meter canvas in red tones, painted by artist Jonathan Yeo.
Source: BFM TV
