Queen Elizabeth Approves the Royal Collection’s Purchase of Four Warhol Portraits

By Doug Barry | September 25, 2012 | 2:25am

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The dour portraits of British monarchs past has been enlivened by the Royal Collection Trust’s latest splurge — four prismatic Andy Warhol screenprints of Queen Elizabeth II wearing her tiara and the big, sparkly necklace she wore during the Silver Jubilee celebrations in 1977. The Queen, it is rumored, was pleased with the purchase.

The Warhol prints will form part of the Portraits of the Monarch exhibit that opens November at Windsor Castle and runs until June 2013, and will be a conspicuously colorful (and American) pop-art addition to a collection of royal portraiture dating back to the 15th century. Royal Librarian Jane Roberts, however, didn’t make too much of how much the Warhol prints will stand out among more traditional (read: booooring) portraits. “They [the Warhols] join a collection dating back 4, 5, 600 years,” Roberts explained. “The fact that they are in a completely new technique is not surprising; things change.” “Things change” may not be the best motto for the British Monarchy, but the Royal Collection’s malleability might presage the day when we finally get a Lisa Frank portrait of Will and Kate standing on an asteroid rainforest as purple dolphins leap over them, trailing beads of diamond water across the cosmos.