MEMORIES OF MUMMY AND GRAN

It’s easy to see why Charles treasures these family portraits of the Queen and Queen Mother. The artist, Michael Noakes – who died aged 84 in May – was one of the Royal Family’s favourite portrait painters and these lifelike sketches are preparatory works for a family group portrait commissioned by the Corporation of the City of London to mark the Queen’s Silver Wedding anniversary in 1972. The finished portrait hangs in the Guildhall, but these sketches are now part of Prince Charles’s private collection at Clarence House, his London home. ‘It’s a very open, direct portrait of the Queen with a gentle, motherly expression,’ says exhibition curator Vanessa Remington. ‘And this is a fresh and lively sketch of the Queen Mother. Its inclusion in this exhibition records the close relationship that the Prince of Wales had with his grandmother.’ The sketch of the Queen now lives

in the light and airy blue Morning Room at Clarence House, the Queen Mother’s former home. It sits alongside paintings from the Queen Mother’s own art collection, including a Monet that is the only Impressionist work in the Royal Collection. The Queen Mother passed her love of art on to her grandson – unlike the Queen, she was a serious collector, mostly of 20th-century British artists – and this is where the young Charles began to appreciate the masterpieces that were a backdrop to his everyday life.