Pratiksha Shome
The National Portrait Gallery in London has become the latest battleground for Prince William and Prince Harry’s sibling rivalry, not a biography or an American TV programme.
The two princes’ joint image won’t be on show when the museum reopens to visitors later this month after a multimillion-dollar refurbishment. The project was completed by Nick Phillips in the idyllic year of 2010, when the two were close friends and Prince William still had a full head of hair. Two brothers lazing around a doorway with white gloves in their hands makes for a cute scene.
Unavoidably, this omission has caused some controversy in the UK. The growing royal schism has caused certain sections of the British media to believe that something sinister is going on with the removal of the royal artwork in the wake of Harry and wife Meghan Markle’s Oprah interview and tell-all (kind of) Netflix documentary series.
One theory holds that Kate Middleton, a royal patron of the National Portrait Gallery and the wife of Prince William, exerted influence on a curatorial choice. No proof exists to support this. (However, it would be a royal masterpiece in interior design that uses passive aggression.)
Valentine Low, the Times’ royal journalist, believes Kate Middleton would connect with the piece on a deeply personal level. According to Low, the artwork “might be seen as a painful reminder of the rift at the heart of the royal family.” “One that particularly resonates with the Princess of Wales, the gallery’s patron.”
The Philipps painting, according to the National Portrait Gallery, is frequently mounted and unmounted, just like the 250,000 other pieces in its collection, and hasn’t been on exhibit since August 2018 (it was closed for renovations in 2020). Nope. There is nothing to see.
The gallery told Artnet News in a statement, “We are only allowed to display a limited percentage within our facility. We frequently lend out and perform our works both domestically and abroad. Between 2018 and 2021, the travelling exhibition Tudors to Windsors featured this portrait by Nicky Philipps.
It’s a convincing and logical answer, but it probably won’t do anything to stop the rumours.
Source: Artnet news
