Is this ‘the worst royal portrait ever’?
It’s a bit of a milestone when you’re a newly crowned monarch: sooner or later your first official portrait will be unveiled. Then of course you hope that it will portray you at your best, so that you will have something nice to look back on over the years. Does the brand new portrait of Charles also meet these requirements? Well… Judge for yourself, we would say.
Official portrait
With a grand unveiling at Buckingham Palace, the final product was festively unveiled yesterday by none other than HRH himself. This portrait, by artist Jonathan Yeo, shows the King in his uniform of the Welsh Guards, of which he was a regimental colonel from 1975 to 2022.
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About the work of art, the painter himself states that it was a great honor to be able to depict Charles. “When I started this project, His Majesty The King was still His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales, and like the butterfly I painted near his shoulder, this portrait has evolved as the role of its subject in the society has evolved.”
Now that all sounds well and good, but we really had to blink twice at the unveiling.
Comments
And judging by the reactions going around the internet, we weren’t exactly the only ones. “Sorry, but it looks like Charles is in hell,” several people captioned the video. Others argue that the portrait looks ‘unfinished’ and that the painting reminds them of the infamous Tampongate between Charles and Camilla. Fans of the Windsors also argue that the portrait is a disservice to their majesty and that it is one of the ‘worst royal portraits ever’. One joker in the comments even wonders whether activists have touched the painting with soup cans. Aiii…
Yet not everyone is negative. Some may appreciate that it is something different from a traditional portrait, and a few believe that Charles himself will at least come off well.
Location
Fortunately, Jonathan Yeo has an impressive painting career and the fuss will probably not bother him much. Moreover, the portrait will hang in the Drapers’ Hall in London, so Charles and Camilla will not have to walk past it every day. That makes a difference!
Source: Instagram @theroyalfamily | Image: NL Image
