The day Queen Elizabeth looked like ‘one of the royal corgis had a stroke’? Not that Her Majesty seemed to mind…

It may not be the most flattering royal portrait.

According to the editor of the British Art Journal, it made the late queen look “like one of the royal corgis that has had a stroke.”

Yet Her Majesty seemed unconcerned by the brutal depiction in a now infamous painting by Lucian Freud from 2021.

Queen Elizabeth II shakes hands with artist Lucian Freud

Author of the bestselling The Palace Papers, Tina Brown

According to author Tina Brown, the commission was seen as a risk for Freud given his reputation for painting ‘fleshy, hanging nudes’.

In her best-selling book The Palace Papers, she explains: ‘Freud broke a lifelong rule of having his subjects come to his studio and traveled to the Picture Conservation Studio in Friary Court at St James’s Palace from May 2000 to December 2001, where he May 2000 to December 2001, the Queen held 15 sessions.

‘They reportedly had ‘a great time’ and talked non-stop about horses and racing.

‘The resulting portrait was as brutal as you would expect from Freud: stark, coarse-featured and imposing.

“There is a fixed resolution for the sovereign jaw and a heavy crown on her head.”

One critic suggested that the monarch should jail Freud for lèse-majesté.

But as Brown explains, the Queen herself showed her usual lack of personal vanity when the portrait was displayed.

“Very interesting,” she remarked gnomically. Maybe it helped that it was small (five by nine centimeters).”

This was in stark contrast to the way Winston Churchill had responded to the portrait made of him by Graham Sutherland for his 80th birthday in 1954 and presented to him that same year. It was paid for through contributions from MPs and members of the House of Lords.

A black and white photograph of Graham Sutherland’s Winston Churchill portrait, presented to the great man in 1954 by former and current members of the Houses of Lords and Commons

Churchill strongly disliked Sutherland’s portrait, claiming it made him look like a dolt. The photo shows his wife Clementine leaving the 80th birthday celebration where it was presented to him. She would later burn the photo

Churchill, who considered the painting unflattering, fell into a “thunderous mood,” Brown writes. And after the presentation, the artwork was never seen again.

In 1978, his wife Clementine admitted to burning it.

The queen responded more graciously to her own portrait, Brown writes:

‘In 2017, she recognized its significance in the artist’s oeuvre and approved the portrait’s hanging in the Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace.’