{"id":203948,"date":"2026-04-20T22:54:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T22:54:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/203948\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T22:54:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T22:54:15","slug":"queen-elizabeth-memorial-statue-was-inspired-by-a-famous-portrait-with-prince-philip-a-few-paces-behind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/203948\/","title":{"rendered":"Queen Elizabeth memorial statue was inspired by a famous portrait \u2013 with Prince Philip \u2018a few paces behind\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

The national memorial<\/a> to Queen Elizabeth II<\/a> will feature a statue of the monarch<\/a> inspired by a famous portrait, showing her as a young woman in her Garter robes in the early years of her reign.<\/p>\n

The final plan for the central London tribute<\/a> has been unveiled to coincide with what would have been the late Queen\u2019s 100th birthday Tuesday.<\/p>\n

A bronze statue<\/a> of the Queen in her 20s, dressed in the robes of the Order of the Garter, will stand overlooking The Mall at the entrance to the St James\u2019s Park memorial, which has been designed by renowned architect Lord Foster.<\/p>\n

The memorial will feature a family of gardens through the park with meandering paths and a new translucent, glass unity bridge, inspired by the late Queen\u2019s wedding tiara and replacing the current Blue Bridge.<\/p>\n

The new bridge is likely to be called the Queen Elizabeth Bridge.<\/p>\n

A \u201cfew paces behind\u201d the Queen, as was his usual position, will be a smaller statue of her consort Prince Philip, the late Duke of Edinburgh, in his Naval uniform, looking up at his wife of more than 70 years.<\/p>\n

The likeness of the Queen by sculptor Martin Jennings will take inspiration from the celebrated 1955 portrait of Elizabeth II by Italian artist Pietro Annigoni.<\/p>\n

The Queen sat for Annigoni at Buckingham Palace in late 1954 when she was just 28 and the Renaissance-style painting was completed the following year.<\/p>\n

It captures the young monarch<\/a>, just a few years into her reign, minus a tiara but draped in her weighty Garter robes, composed and gazing into the distance<\/a>, with Annigoni having taken influence from a remark the Queen made to him during a sitting about how, as a child, she enjoyed watching people and cars from her window in the Palace.<\/p>\n

The statue will stand 7.3 metres high \u2013 with the Queen three metres tall on a 4.3-metre plinth \u2013 in a new civic space called Queen Elizabeth II Place at Marlborough Gate on the edge of the park.<\/p>\n

The smaller companion statue \u2013 3.8 metres in height with a 2.3-metre figure and a 1.5-metre plinth, of the duke will be located 20 metres behind in the park.<\/p>\n

Philip will be represented at a similar age, wearing his Admiral-of-the-Fleet uniform.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The Queen sat for Annigoni at Buckingham Palace in late 1954 when she was just 28 and the Renaissance-style painting was completed the following year (Getty Images)<\/p>\n

The Queen\u2019s former private secretary Lord Janvrin, chairman of the Queen Elizabeth Memorial Committee said: \u201cWe thought it was very important that the statue of the Queen, our head of state, was on the ceremonial route in her own right.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe will be depicted standing, on her own.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut Prince Philip was such an important part \u2013 they worked as a team \u2013 of the realm that we\u2019ve decided that he should be a few paces behind the Queen \u2013 a position he was accustomed to.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cPrince Philip will be looking up because she is on a slightly higher pedestal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lord Janvrin said the Annigoni portrait was a \u201clovely, iconic image of the young Queen.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cWe think probably most people would like to be remembered when they were young.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut at the Birdcage Walk end, we will have a bust of the Queen in what I call her later years, not very old, but probably when she was in her fifties, sixties.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bust of the more mature Queen will be crafted by artist Karen Newman for the other side of the park.<\/p>\n

The King, Queen Camilla and other members of the royal family will view maquettes of the planned statues and a scale model of the wider memorial when they visit the British Museum on Tuesday, as part of events commemorating what would have been the Queen\u2019s centenary.<\/p>\n

The figure they will see of Philip, in his uniform, shows the duke standing as he often did with both arms behind his back.<\/p>\n

The appearance of both statues will be further refined during the sculpting process.<\/p>\n

It is one of three projects under way in honour of the Queen, with a new charity, The Queen Elizabeth Trust, and a Digital Memorial also launched on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The Digital Memorial aims to create a \u201cliving archive\u201d made of the public\u2019s personal memories of the Queen.<\/p>\n

It will digitise the Court Circular \u2013 the daily record of official royal engagements \u2013 and bring it to life, mapping key events from the Queen\u2019s reign.<\/p>\n

The public will be asked to contribute their recollections via the website Queenelizabeth.com \u2013 which was previously owned by the luxury cruise line Cunard for the Queen Elizabeth ship, but was donated by the company after a request from the digital memorial.<\/p>\n

Joe Garner, the Queen Elizabeth Memorial Committee member who specialised on the digital memorial, said: \u201cWe could create the most phenomenal archive.\u201d<\/p>\n

He suggested it could develop into adding cinefilm and photos from the public, and would be expanded to map memories from around the globe.<\/p>\n

Recorded footage of memories from celebrities including Olympian Tom Daley and artist Dame Tracey Emin already feature on the new site.<\/p>\n

Daley recalls how he was told off for sitting on the Queen\u2019s throne, saying: \u201cI remember when the Queen came into the room, she always had this incredible presence.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did go and sit on her throne, and I did get told off for that, because at 14 years old, I didn\u2019t realise that you\u2019re not meant to sit on the reigning monarch\u2019s throne.\u201d<\/p>\n

The memorial is expected to be completed in 2028.<\/p>\n

Luis Matania, senior partner at Foster + Partners who has led on the built memorial, said the steel and glass \u201ctiara\u201d bridge used the latest technologies.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an opportunity to actually\u2026 use the latest technologies we have and do something structurally that still retains the principle of something very delicate, almost a boardwalk that crosses the water, that does not interrupt that beautiful view,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Lord Janvrin said: \u201cWe were very keen to try to convey through all the memorial projects to get across a sense of the Queen\u2019s values, her sense of public service, her sense of devoting herself to us and to serving the nation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Queen Elizabeth Trust is an independent grant-making charity which will work with communities across the UK to transform community spaces to bring local people together across generations.<\/p>\n

The idea was inspired by the late Queen\u2019s Christmas broadcasts in which she often spoke of the importance of neighbours and local communities, Lord Janvrin said.<\/p>\n

Sir Damon Buffini, chairman of the new trust, said he hoped millions of people would benefit from its future work on the regeneration and support of spaces currently not fit for purpose.<\/p>\n

He praised the Queen\u2019s \u201cabsolute belief in community\u201d, saying: \u201cThe trust is all about how do you project those (values) into the future where as many people as possible can benefit from that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The trust hopes to work on its first project by the end of this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The national memorial to Queen Elizabeth II will feature a statue of the monarch inspired by a famous…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":203949,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[80682,80683,9,24,63,80681,3994,1312,122,124,123],"class_list":{"0":"post-203948","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-queens","8":"tag-lord-foster","9":"tag-lord-janvrin","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-city","12":"tag-nyc","13":"tag-pietro-annigoni","14":"tag-prince-philip","15":"tag-queen-elizabeth-ii","16":"tag-queens","17":"tag-queens-headlines","18":"tag-queens-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}