ANNIE LEIBOVITZ (B. 1949)

Annie Leibovitz’s Queen Elizabeth II, The White Drawing Room, Buckingham Palace, London (2007) forms part of a suite of photographs commissioned by the Royal Household to celebrate Her Majesty’s State Visit to the United States; their creation also coincided with the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in the Americas. Leibovitz, who included the work in her two recent publications  Annie Leibovitz at Work and Annie Leibovitz. Portraits: 2005-2016, was the first American to make an official portrait of the Queen. ‘I felt honoured’, she recalled. ‘I also felt that because I was an American, I had an advantage over every other photographer or painter who had made a portrait of her. It was O.K. for me to be reverent’ (A. Leibovitz, Annie Leibovitz at Work, 2008, reprinted in ‘Annie Gets Her Shot’, Vanity Fair, October 2008). Dressed in a resplendent gold gown, the Queen stands radiant in a chiaroscuro room. Light glimmers off the opulent candlesticks, gilt chairs, and the infinite chandelier reflections. Indeed, her portrait of the Queen is a study in majesty and grace.

With her team, Leibovitz spent three weeks scouting settings for the four portraits she would go on to make of Elizabeth. Queen Elizabeth II, The White Drawing Room, Buckingham Palace, London presents the Queen in the  White Drawing Room, thought to be one of Buckingham Palace’s more private State Rooms. From the photoshoot, which lasted just thirty minutes, Leibovitz realized four intimate portraits of exceptional vulnerability. She captured the Queen as both a monarch and a woman. ‘Right after we finished,’ Lebovitz remembered, ‘I went up to the press secretary and said how much I loved the Queen. How feisty she was … What was remarkable about the shoot, and I wrote the Queen a note about this later ... [was] her resolve, her devotion to duty. She stayed until I said it was over. Until I said, “Thank you”’ (A. Leibovitz, ibid.).