Pietro Annigoni | The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee 2022

1960s

Pietro Annigoni RP (1910–88) Lent by the National Portrait Gallery

Queen Elizabeth II

216 x 197 cm (85 x 78 ins) Tempera grassa on paper panel

Born in Milan in 1910, Annigoni moved with his family to Florence where he lived most of his life. In 1927, he was admitted to the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence.

During the 1950’s and 1960’s he was considered one of the most important figurative painter in the world. Among his sitters were crowned heads, Popes, American presidents and stars of all stripes.

The second painting of H.M the Queen is a portrait in tempera grassa on paper on panel. The Queen is depicted wearing the red robes of the Order of the British Empire. 18 sittings were held over eight months between the Queen and Annigoni.

The 1969 portrait was commissioned by the trustees of the National Portrait Gallery and funded by art dealer Hugh Leggatt.

Annigoni said of the second portrait of the Queen that he ‘did not want to paint her as a film star; I saw her as a monarch, alone in the problems of her responsibility’.