Thirty-four years after the late Queen Elizabeth II opened the National Gallery’s Sainsbury Wing, her son, King Charles III has returned to reopen it, with Queen Camilla, following extensive refurbishment. To mark the occasion, their Majesties’ recently completed coronation state portraits were unveiled in the gallery’s central hall.
Spare a thought for Peter Kuhfeld (b. 1952) and the self-taught Paul S Benney (b. 1959), the British artists who executed them, who are not quite of the calibre, shall we say, of the greats responsible for the full-length portraits on the surrounding walls. To one side, for instance, there is The Red Boy (1825) by Thomas Lawrence, who is renowned for his painterly flair. And, a few rooms away, there is the colossal equestrian portrait of Charles I by Anthony van Dyck: a defining image of British sovereignty. Tough competition.
The Royal Collection, of which the portraits will form a part, defines state portraits as carefully constructed, “definitive” images of the monarch (usually dressed in robes and accompanied by a crown, orb, and sceptre) as “the embodiment of Royal rule”. The earliest known example in the collection is Paul van Somer’s c. 1620 likeness of James VI & I; another image by Van Dyck, at Windsor Castle, was likely conceived as Charles I’s official state portrait. Since the coronation of King Edward VII, in 1902, coronation portrait photographs have also been released – the King’s, by Hugo Burnand, appeared in 2023 – in advance of the painted portraits.
Selected by the King, Kuhfeld plays it very safe, adhering to the conventions of a typical state portrait – with, for instance, the imperial state crown positioned prominently to the monarch’s side (on a table that, surreally and unfortunately, appears to sprout like a golden fungus from a crimson curtain). Sunlight streams in from a palace window to the picture’s left, imbuing the composition with a late-afternoon quality, commensurate with the fact that Charles acceded the throne when he was already in his seventies. Sadly, though, this air of end-of-day decline is exacerbated by Kuhfeld’s doddery touch.
Dressed, beneath his robe, in military uniform (just like his great-grandfather, George V, in his state portrait), the King appears kindly but uncertain, with piercing yet close-set cornflower-blue eyes, and lips that seem to tremble. His anatomy, too, is somewhat squashed, providing an unintentionally bathetic note, as if a potentially great man had been diminished. Overall, he comes across as diffident, and – a fatal flaw, this, in a state portrait – does not command his stage.
Benney’s sleek portrait of the Queen – who stands further forward in the space of the picture, which makes her appear more self-confident, as well as soignée – is far more satisfying (and reproducible, which is important in our digital age). By representing that eye-catching cascade of her purple robe, the picture also nods explicitly to the state portrait of Elizabeth II. (The women, in both pictures, wear white.) As an image, it has greater clarity and coherence than Kuhfeld’s wobbly effort. I relish the fact that, for instance, the colour of the background picks up tiny details in Camilla’s costume, such as the hue of a setting in her bracelet on her right wrist, or the fan she holds.
Is it deliberate that the red palette of the King’s portrait finds its complement in this green tonality of the Queen’s? I’d like to think so – but, if all you had to go on was the respective strengths of these two pictures, you’d assume that Camilla was the regnant monarch, and Charles her consort.
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