The Missing William and Harry Painting at the National Portrait Gallery Has a Fraternal Twin

I've seen it, and I'll share it with my subscribers. It prompts some intriguing questions.

Ever since the reopening of the National Portrait Gallery last month after a major refurbishment, questions have arisen about one conspicuous omission in the public display: a dual portrait of Princes William and Harry by artist Nicky Philipps that was painted in 2009 and unveiled the following year.

They were both lieutenants in the Household Cavalry, and they wore their full mess uniform of the Blues and Royals regiment. The informality of the painting was praised as “thoroughly modern,” and the mood captured by Philipps was affectionate. “They chatted and they joshed around,” she recalled in an interview published yesterday in The Times. “William was very fraternal, or almost paternal….They finished each other’s sentences, which was rather sweet, or they would make a joke and then roar with laughter about it together.”

Thirteen years on, the brothers are deeply estranged after Harry’s series of television interviews and his memoir Spare sharply criticized the royal family and singled out William and his wife Catherine for particularly scornful comments. The rift had begun after Harry’s marriage to American actress Meghan Markle in May 2018, and intensified when Harry and Meghan moved to California less than two years later, leaving their royal duties and appearing on TV to speak what they called their “truth.”

The last time the portrait was seen in London was between March and August 2018 before the three-year gallery renovation began.  Neither the gallery nor the Prince of Wales’s office has given a reason for the omission from the collection currently on display. Catherine, now the Princess of Wales, is the gallery’s royal patron who presided over the grand reopening. The prospect of her appearance with the feuding brothers’ portrait could have been awkward, to say the least.

“I have no idea what the reason is, but one can surmise,” Philipps said. “I sympathize entirely with the Prince of Wales. I think washing dirty laundry in public is not great. So, if that has anything to do with it, I’m very sympathetic.”

 But the story of the brothers’ portrait has another intriguing and little-known wrinkle. There is a second version of the portrait, also signed by Nicky Philipps, that hasn’t been discussed publicly.

The first version, owned by the National Portrait Gallery, was originally meant to be painted at Clarence House, the London home of their father, then Prince Charles. But the light wasn’t right, so the brothers did their ninety-minute sittings together three times and twice separately at Philipps’s home studio in South Kensington, where the north-facing light is better for portraiture. The background of the portrait, however, resembles the Morning Room at Clarence House. Although Philipps paints her subjects from life, she does use photographs to create backgrounds.

The Morning Room at Clarence House in London

Which brings us to the second portrait, seen below.