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Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, later Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother 1900–2002
This sensitive portrait captures Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon on the threshold of a new life. She sat for Sargent just weeks before marrying Prince Albert, Duke of York, second son of King George V and Queen Mary. Unsure that she was suited for public life, Lady Elizabeth refused the prince at least three times before finally accepting his proposal. He unexpectedly became King George VI upon his brother's abdication in 1936, and she endeared herself to the British public by her courage and compassion during the Second World War.
Sargent was commissioned to make drawings of Lady Elizabeth and Prince Albert as gifts for the couple's wedding in April 1923. The artist later declared Lady Elizabeth to be "the only completely unselfconscious sitter I ever had," in marked contrast to her notoriously shy and nervous husband. After George VI died in 1952, she assumed the role of Queen Mother when her daughter Elizabeth II ascended to the throne.
Charcoal on paper, 1923
Lent by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II |