Royal Watch News

Queen Elizabeth sketch to sell for 12k

Sep 11, 2012, 12:02 GMT

Queen Elizabeth

A rare charcoal sketch of Britain's Queen Elizabeth is going up for auction valued at £12,000.

The artwork depicts the 86-year-old monarch as a 23-year-old woman two years before she ascended the throne on February 6, 1952 - when she was still known as Princess Elizabeth - and has never been in the Royal Collection.

The sketch was drawn by the late Dame Laura Knight - an impressionist painter - who created it for her own purposes, but the queen was recently shown the piece and remembered sitting for the portrait, which is drawn in charcoal and red chalk and depicts the royal's fine features and rosy red lips.

Robert Hall, pictures specialist at Bloomsbury Auctions in London, told the MailOnline: 'It's a refreshing view of the queen as a human.

'You can see the beautiful spirit in her eyes. In terms of beauty she has always been overshadowed by Princess Margaret but you see here that she was a very pretty girl. She was in the bloom of youth. It's a little window into the queen that we have forgotten.'

At the time the portrait was drawn Elizabeth would have been in the early stages of pregnancy with Princess Anne.

Laura sold the drawing in 1969, one year before her death, to a mystery buyer who wished to remain anonymous.