CELEBRATING A CENTURY OF REGAL PORTRAITURE THE ROYAL FAMILY HOW BUCKINGHAM PALACE'S NEW EXHIBITION LIFTS THE VEIL ON UNSEEN IMAGES AND HIDDEN TREASURES

Leaning with one arm up against the wall as he gazes across at his little sister, an eight-year-old Prince Charles looks every inch the doting older brother in a never-before-seen royal portrait.

- EMILY HORAN

‘I think the royal family over the past century have understood the importance of photography’

The striking image, taken in 1956 by photographer Antony Armstrong Jones, who later married Princess Margaret to become the Earl of Snowdon, is one of more than 150 items going on display in the King's Gallery at Buckingham Palace in a new exhibition opening in May.

Royal Portraits: A Century of Photographs will give the public a rare behind-the-scenes glimpse of the most iconic portraits taken of the royal family.

It will also feature several previously unseen images, including the tender moment captured between the now King and Princess Royal, which was taken in Buckingham Palace's Picture Gallery as part of a commission to mark Charles's eighth birthday.

"I think it would have been a fun sitting for the children," exhibition curator Alessandro Nasini tells HELLO! in our exclusive interview. "It is always exciting to share this kind of material with visitors. I love how the young photographer, then only 26, plays with the children and their reflections in the mirrored doors."

Celebrating a century of royal portraiture, the exhibition will reveal the stories behind beautiful images marking state occasions and family moments alike, captured by renowned photographers such as Cecil Beaton and Dorothy Wilding, as well as the future Lord Snowdon.

Andy Warhol's screenprint of Queen Elizabeth II, based on a photograph taken in 1975 by Peter Grugeon for the official Silver Jubilee portraits

POWER OF PHOTOGRAPHY 

It has been three years in the making, with the curator trawling the rich royal archives for images.