In the portrait, Queen Elizabeth, then 42, is wearing full royal attire, including a velvet robe and Tiara of Vladimir. (The striking diadem consists of intersecting circles with diamonds and pearls). She gave the camera and Beaton a small smile. The image was first shown briefly in an exhibition of Beaton’s portraits at the National Portrait Gallery in November 1968 (at the time the first living photographer’s retrospective in a British museum). When the exhibition ended in March 1969, the photo was returned to the archives – never to be seen again until now.

Cultural impact

The photo also had an important cultural impact: Beaton was the leading chronicler of the British royal family, documenting Windsors from the 1930s to 1970s. He first photographed Queen Elizabeth in 1942 for her sixteenth birthday. “The young princess I photographed that day has now become a queen of extraordinary qualities. Her unique heritage has made her an extraordinary person and her training to assume a role of ruler is evident at this time in the increasing authority of her personality,” Beaton wrote in an essay for British Vogue in 1953. Their last meeting? It happened in 1968, in a photo released by Buckingham Palace.

When Beaton died, he had achieved much. His decades-long contract with Vogue has cemented his identity as one of the most important portrait and fashion photographers of the twentieth century, though his talent is far from monolithic: he has also earned Academy Awards for production and costume design. Still, that is New York Time that he remains Queen Elizabeth’s “most famous portrait photographer.” With this rare archival photo, the world is once again reminded of his enduring legacy.