‘The visual equivalent of a packet of parma violets...’
Artists from around the world have spent almost seven decades attempting to capture the likeness of the Queen. There have been all manner of approaches, ranging from the windswept romanticism of Pietro Annigoni’s Hollywood-heroine depiction to Andy Warhol’s pop-icon screen-prints and a scruffy impasto miniature by Lucian Freud.
Now it’s the turn of Miriam Escofet, the Barcelona-born painter, to portray the monarch. Escofet came to Britain as a young girl in 1979, missing out by two years on the Silver Jubilee. Widely exhibited in Europe, her exquisitely detailed work is often influenced by classical, Gothic and Renaissance architecture; her portraits act as a starting point for a richer allegory. Her 2018 BP Portrait Award-winning painting, for example, was a portrait of her own mother that, surrounded by lovingly arranged crockery, suggested an archetypal mother figure.
As with Escofet’s other portraits, this new painting treats the Queen in hyper-realistic detail. Her Majesty is the model of propriety, perched attentively on a golden-framed chair in Windsor Castle’s White Drawing Room. Pinned to her dress is a favourite pearl brooch, which her grandmother Queen Mary wore to the young princess’s christening in 1926.
Escofet’s palette is overwhelmingly pastel in tone – soft blues, mauves, purples and pinks encompass her subject, imbuing the painting with a
‘Where is the air of longevity, stature and sense of duty through decades of turbulence?’
lavender-scented calm. Ahead of the picture’s unveiling, it was hinted that the portrait would pay homage to the great 16th century court painter, Hans Holbein the Younger. In the event, it’s a bit of a stretch to see the comparison, although the Holbeinesque detail – from the room’s gold embellishments to the monarch’s white hair – is admittedly immaculate.
But whereas Henry VIII’s portraitist of choice might have populated a supporting table top with symbolic objects, the only props in Escofet’s work are a faded flower arrangement and a china cup, which has the insignia of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, where the painting will hang.
The Queen, alas, has suffered at the hands of artists – remember George Condo’s “Cabbage Patch Queen” of 2006, or Antony Williams’s 1996 “sausage fingers” portrait? Escofet’s contribution is unremarkable.
Her Majesty has sat on the throne for 68-and-a-half years, a period in which not only society and technology but artistic styles have been challenged and transformed beyond recognition. This portrait gives us no sense of any of that. Where is the air of longevity, stature and sense of duty through decades of turbulence?
This could be one of the last formal portraits of the longest-reigning monarch in British history. But instead, what we’re left with is an uninspiring and somewhat kitschy portrayal of the nation’s favourite dog-loving grandmother – an elderly lady at ease, politely interested in the viewer. It’s the visual equivalent of a packet of parma violets.