Pity poor Queen Elizabeth II when she saw her dowdy and stark portrait released last week by painter Lucian Freud, grandson to Sigmund Freud.
The painting is considered in England to be something of a Freudian slip, as it is a brutally honest although exaggerated comment on the royal personality. In broad brushstrokes and using a modern style of interpretation, Lucian Freud broke a long-standing tradition.
Official portraits stem from the days before photography. They were meant to be historical records that served as the only way a people could know what their leaders looked like. Thus, most are formal and flattering. Few inject a commentary on the subject's personality. But the ability to convey a sense of a person's spirit is considered the hallmark of great portraits when the subject is an ordinary person who does not wear a crown.
Even portraits of American presidents have typically been painted with more restraint that avoid focusing on the jowls or giving the subject a glassy-eyed stare, as Freud did with England's queen.
Only once in American history has a commissioned painter relied as heavily on artistic license in painting a head of state as did Freud. Painter Elaine de Kooning rendered John F. Kennedy in a colorful abstract expressionist form. The queen has not publicly commented on her portrait.
Most newspapers in the United Kingdom certainly did complain about various features in the unflattering portrait that is now part of the Royal Collection.
As always, however, the subject is controversial.
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