Diamond Diadem on Coronation portrait was afterthought
‘It’s really cleverly integrated; you’d never know she wasn’t actually wearing it’
POSING for her portrait in the Throne Room of Buckingham Palace, the Queen looks – as always – as if she was born to wear the Diamond Diadem.
As it happened, she was not wearing it at all.
The diadem, which has been captured on coins, banknotes, postage stamps and worn at key moments throughout the Queen’s reign, was in fact added an entire year after the painting was completed, via the medium of cellophane. The Coronation portrait, painted by Sir Herbert James Gunn in 1953, is to be included in a new Platinum Jubilee display at Windsor Castle, with its full story told for the first time.
Curators will reveal how Sir Herbert added the Diamond Diadem as an afterthought, painting it onto a piece of cellophane laid over the canvas as a test before asking the Queen’s approval.
Remarkably, the painting had already been on public display at the Royal Academy with the bare-headed Queen before artist and sitter agreed it could be improved. The finished work has become the official record of the Coronation, while the story of how it was created was lost from the memories of everyone except the painter’s family.
As the Royal Collection Trust re-examined notes about the painting, they found a record of a 1998 conversation between a former Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures and a relative of Sir Herbert.
They will relay it to visitors for the first time as part of a special display “Platinum Jubilee: The Queen’s Coronation” at Windsor Castle from July 7.
Anna Reynolds, Deputy Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures, said the portrait was re-examined ahead of the exhibition from a conservation perspective, with old files opened in a bid to give it the “attention it deserves”.
“The artist came up with this idea of painting onto a piece of cellophane, laying it over the painting and showing the Queen within and without. They agreed it would look better with,” said Ms Reynolds. “It’s really cleverly integrated; you’d never know she wasn’t actually wearing it.”