the queen tea party sandringham© Photo: Getty Images

The Queen is all smiles in stunning unseen portrait to mark Platinum Jubilee

The Queen's Platinum Jubilee Pageant is scheduled for 5 June

Emily Nash - London
Royal EditorLondon
May 2, 2022

A stunning, previously unseen portrait of the Queen enjoying a joke will go on show for the first time this week to mark the Platinum Jubilee.

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The intimate new shot, titled Platinum Queen: Felicity, shows the monarch smiling after an amusing comment made by her close confidante and dresser Angela Kelly, who was helping to rearrange her clothing at the time. It was taken by the holographer Rob Munday during a 2004 photographic session from which he created 'Equanimity' the first official 3D portrait of the Queen.

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Rob has dedicated his newly discovered image to the friendship between Her Majesty and her aide after recalling the moment it was taken.

He told HELLO!: "The atmosphere was incredibly jovial. Angela Kelly is a very funny woman, very down-to-earth. And really, really nice, she put us all incredibly at ease. She would tell jokes, and she'd obviously said something funny to the Queen. And she sort of laughed at that exact moment I pushed the button to do a test shot.

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"Obviously the Queen is very, very comfortable with Angela Kelly, they have this incredible bond, and you can see it."

© Rob Munday

The intimate portrait will be unveiled on 4 May

Rob does not know what prompted the monarch to smile, adding: "I doubt that Angela herself would remember after all these years, but it was clear that they just have this really great rapport with each other."

He discovered the striking portrait among a burst of 32 test shots recorded on his video camera as he set up the shoot. They were filed away alongside the more than 8,000 images of the Queen that he took during two sittings in the yellow drawing room at Buckingham Palace.

He told HELLO! how he came across the shot last August, as he went through his archive.

© Rob Munday

Rob Munday with his portrait of Queen Elizabeth II

"There was just this one frame in the middle, almost like a God-given frame, it just jumped off the monitor. It was taken in a 30th of a second and it's just a really, really nice portrait. There's a twinkle in the eye.

"It's really about the look and the character conveyed by the portrait, and the fact that you very, very seldom see portraits like that which are totally natural."

The portrait is being unveiled in central London on 4 May and will be on view to the public at 45 Park Lane from May 9.

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