Mystery surrounding the relocation of the Princess of Wales’ first official royal portrait

A museum visitor admires a portrait of Catherine, Princess of Wales at the National Portrait Gallery in London, England. Photo / Getty Images

10 years ago, the first official royal portrait of Kate Middleton was unveiled to the public. Now it has effectively disappeared.

Commissioned by the royal family and painted by Paul Emsley, the portrait was one the Princess of Wales described as “brilliant” and “absolutely amazing”. However, critics called it “ghastly”, “rotten” and “an out-and-out disaster”. Regardless, it marks the only solo painting of our future queen, so why has it been removed from the National Portrait Gallery?

Richard Eden, an editor for the Daily Mail, has reported the location of the conversation-provoking artwork is less than royal.

The commissioned portrait of Kate, Duchess of Cambridge by artist Paul Emsley on display at the National Portrait Gallery in London. Photo / AP

Noting it can only be viewed “by prior appointment in our archive”, Eden claims the portrait has been moved to a store room at the gallery and believes that’s something the princess may be pleased about, as it has previously been described as one that made her look “dead-eyed” and older than her years.

Despite this, a source told the royal editor the act of removing the portrait - which had a prominent place in the gallery between 2013 and 2018 before being lent to a worldwide touring exhibition - is “unthinkable” and claimed it was done so without consulting the princess.

“It’s unthinkable that the painting of Her Royal Highness would be removed from public view without consulting her,” an unnamed source said. “That would be very discourteous. She is our greatly valued patron.”

The removal of the portrait was first noticed last month when the Princess of Wales appeared at the gallery for their grand re-opening after a £40 million ($82.6 million) refurbishment.

Catherine, Princess of Wales meets with Paul McCartney and his wife Nancy Shevell during the re-opening of the National Portrait Gallery on June 20, 2023 in London, England. Photo / Getty Images

Now, only two art instalments feature the mother of three. One is a painting by Jamie Coreth of her side-by-side with Prince William, and the second is a photo taken by Paolo Roversi to mark her 40th birthday.

Speaking to Eden, a representative for the gallery addressed speculation that the princess’ sole portrait was removed as it was positioned next to an image of Prince Harry.

Eden reported the gallery may have wanted to avoid any possible conflict after Harry’s bold claims about Kate, William and the royal family in his bombshell memoir Spare and he and Meghan Markle’s Netflix docuseries.

The representative said: “With over 250,000 portraits held in our collection, we are only able to display a small percentage within our building. We regularly rotate the portraits on display and loan portraits from the collection to other galleries and organisations.”

They also said while the princess was present for the re-opening of the gallery - which also saw Sir Paul McCartney in attendance - she has no input over which works are displayed.

“Decisions relating to the portraits on display are made by the curatorial team,” the spokesperson said.