Portrait pictures of a young Queen Elizabeth II taken at the beginning of her reign and the jewels she wore are going display at Buckingham Palace from Friday (July 22).
Tiaras, earrings and necklaces form part of ”The Queen’s Accession” exhibition marking Her Majesty’s record breaking seven decades on the throne.
96-year-old Elizabeth, who is Britain’s longest-reigning and currently the world’s oldest monarch, became queen on February 6, 1952, on the death of her father King George VI.
‘’The exhibition focuses on the first portraits ever taken of her Majesty at that time, displayed alongside the jewels that we see Her Majesty wearing in those portraits,’’ Deputy surveyor of the Queen’s works of art, Caroline de Guitaut told Reuters.
Visitors to the palace’s State Rooms will have the chance to see the display which features around 24 images of the Queen taken by photographer Dorothy Wilding.
Many of the photographs went on to be seen around the world, including a set taken during a session in February 1952 where the Queen wore The Girls of Great Britain and Ireland Tiara.
‘’This image was so vital, so important because it would be used for design of postage stamps, so reproduced millions and millions of times which although it was taken 70 years ago is still an image which is familiar to us today and also in many ways that image has made this beautiful tiara The Girls of Great Britain and Ireland Tiara familiar to us as well because we see it reproduced so many times,’’ de Guitaut explained.
Wilding started taking pictures of the royal family in the 1920s going on to be commissioned to photograph the Queen just 20 days after she ascended the British throne.
The pieces of jewellery on display de Guitaut said, range from items such as a coronet the then Princess Elizabeth wore to her parents coronation in 1937 to pieces given to her for her 18th birthday up to pieces she wore in the 1950s.
(Reuters)
