First Portrait of King Charles III by Illustrated London News

Illustrated London News is proud to reveal its specially commissioned portrait of His Majesty King Charles III that will feature on the front cover of The Illustrated Coronation Edition. The portrait was painted in oils by the artist Alastair Barford, a former QEST scholar (Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust) and is the first portrait to be released since the change of reign and among the first to be commissioned.

Commissioning a portrait of a king is quite a business. Illustrated London News, the parent company of SPHERE, has a long tradition, dating back to 1842, of commissioning royal portraits for coronations and jubilees.

The splendid portrait, is revealed for the first time in The Illustrated Coronation Edition.  It was painted in oils by the talented artist Alastair Barford, a Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust (QEST) scholar, after attending a reception at Buckingham Palace hosted by The King. He had just two weeks to complete the portrait.

A detail of the portrait includes a bracelet on His Majesty’s wrist, presented to The King by the Amazon indigenous leader, Domingo Peas, at the Palace reception on 17 February. The artist included the bracelet to give the portrait context and authenticity, a symbol of The King’s advocacy on climate change and sustainability. 

This was not Barford’s first royal portrait. He was commissioned by ILN in 2015 to paint The Queen, to mark Her Majesty becoming the longest-reigning British monarch. It was his first ever commission and he observed The Queen at The Order of Garter Ceremony at Windsor. The portrait was hailed in The Daily Telegraph as “a far better likeness than many more famous artists have achieved from extensive sittings with The Queen” and The Daily Mail deemed it “stunning”. After The Queen‘s death in September 2022, The Daily Telegraph included Barford’s portrait as one of the top five portraits of Her Majesty.

How did you feel about the commission? It was a terrifying honour! It’s a great responsibility to create a portrait of someone who means so much to so many people. I also felt disbelief and, until I physically stood near The King in Buckingham Palace, I wasn’t entirely convinced the commission would materialise.

What was it like attending The Palace to observe King Charles?  To be in Buckingham Palace with The King would be overwhelming at the best of times. To be there with the object of observing and gathering reference material for a portrait took that responsibility to another level. We were mostly in The Gallery, a vast room with the great masterpieces of portraiture by my artistic heroes, like Van Dyck, Rubens and Frans Hals. It was an inspiring and humbling experience.

The majority of the portraits I paint are directly from life. This commission was different and I found myself thinking about the working methods of my favourite sculptor, Bernini. When sculpting Louis XIV, Bernini would follow him around, making sketches and studying him until he could almost sculpt him from memory. While taking photographs and making sketches,
I observed The King’s mannerisms and how he holds himself.

What is The King like, as a subject for a portrait? If you are painting someone you know, you bring to the portrait certain preconceptions — an idea of the person that might not correspond with their appearance. While I don’t know The King, he has been an enduring presence in all our lives. So reconciling this idea of The King with the reference material I had gathered was a challenge.

The King was wearing a suit rather than robes of State, so I wanted this to be a more personal, intimate portrait of the man. I wished to capture his warmth and sensitivity, the empathy that came across in his interactions with the people he met. It was important that I captured a sympathetic expression.

What were the particular challenges with this commission?  The limited amount of time, just two weeks, which I had to complete the portrait. Working on a single portrait all day, every day is intense and I felt guilty whenever I wasn’t working on the painting, but I have come to realise that the time we spend away from our paintings is also a valuable part of the process. The tight time frame also presented technical challenges. To work on an oil painting every day is like picking at a wound. The painting needs time to dry, just as the wound needs time to heal.

How did this commission compare with our previous one of The Queen?  Working on both portraits demanded a different approach to my normal practice of working from life, because I observed them for a short amount of time, and worked from the reference material I gathered on the occasion and my memory. The Queen was adorned in her Garter Robes, so that portrait was more concerned with the portrayal of her official role. The portrait of The King is a more intimate look at the man behind the role.

How did the process of creating the portrait evolve? At The Palace I was told I could take a few photographs of The King. A photographer who was present advised: “In here, it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission.” So I ended up with several hundred photographs of The King, and a few sketches! The first step was to go through these. At this stage I hoped the idea would emerge. I also studied archival photographs of The King. The relationship between artist and subject can be intense — it’s unlike any other, and even when working at a distance, I felt involved with my subject. I came close to tears when looking through photographs of The King at his mother’s funeral. Developing this intimacy between artist and subject is an important part of my process.

Slowly an idea and a pose began to emerge. I played about in Photoshop, combining different images based on my preliminary ideas. I found myself thinking of Bernini again, whose bust of Charles I was created not from life, but inspired by a triptych painted by Van Dyck. From these experiments I worked up the final image on canvas. I was in touch with ILN, which provided feedback at various stages. The design was in a state of flux right up until the final day, when I was still making major changes!

What constitutes a great likeness, in your view? Sometimes a likeness can be arrived at almost without effort, with the painting telling you what to do, but more often it is hard won, and the smallest change can make or break the likeness. What I look for in art is honesty. A painting shouldn’t be a facsimile of life, but portray the artist’s understanding of who they are painting.

The Queen was your first commission. How do you feel you have developed since? I hope I have grown in confidence. When I painted The Queen I was 27 and came directly from art school in Florence to paint the portrait. I was working as I had been taught. Now I am 35 and in the eight intervening years, I have begun to develop my own approach to drawing and painting, based on what I was taught, while not adhering to it slavishly. However, I believe an artist is a perpetual student and my artistic technique is always evolving.

How important has QEST been to your professional development? QEST has been a huge part of my artistic development. QEST funded my first year of study at Charles H Cecil studios in Florence, and has been a support ever since, offering chances to exhibit and seminars on professional practice. I have also had the privilege of meeting some wonderful and inspiring fellow artists and makers through QEST.

The Illustrated Coronation Edition is available at major retailers and at britishcoronation.com. A second Coronation edition will be published by ILN on 12 May.

Limited-edition prints of HM The Queen, signed by Alastair Barford, are available at recordreign.com.
alastairbarford.co.uk; qest.org.uk