Portrait of Queen 'looking like a corgi' to go on display on her platinum jubilee year

Queen Elizabeth II is one of the most famous people in the world, and also one of the most popular subjects for portraits. One of her most unique and controversial portraits, an amalgamation of her face with a corgi, is going on display at the National Gallery late next year.

The monarch's love for corgis is well known, but mixing her face with her beloved pets is not approved by many. However, it is the Royal Collection Trust that currently holds the portrait, and them allowing to display it shows that the 95-year-old herself isn't bothered by it. In addition, the exhibition is coming out in 2022, which also marks the 70th year of her reign on the British throne.

Lucien Freud, who made the portrait titled "Queen Elizabeth II" in 2001, had delivered it to her in person. William Feaver's biography of the painter, published last year, said the Queen seemed very pleased and told Freud: "Very nice of you to do this. I've very much enjoyed watching you mix your colours."

Nonetheless, the painting remains one of the most divisive royal portraits even two decades later, and continues to be scrutinised. Robin Simon, the editor of the British Art Journal, spoke to The Guardian about the portrait at the time: "It makes her look like one of her corgis who has suffered a stroke. It is a huge error for Lucian Freud. He has gone a portrait too far."

There are several other critics of the portrait, who believe it is in line with Freud's often sombre and stark work. One critic thought she looked like a prop forward with a six o'clock shadow on her chin. Adrian Searle, The Guardian's art critic at the time the portrait was released, was one of its rare admirers and dubbed it possibly the best royal portrait in the last century and a half.

Regardless of the criticism, the portrait is a part of the collection "Lucien Freud: New Perspectives" which is opening at the National Gallery on October 1, 2022, and runs until January 22, 2023. The exhibition, which carries over 50 pieces from the celebrated artist, will mark the centenary of his birthday on December 8, 2022.

Freud was one of the most notable British portrait painters of the twentieth century. He was born in 1922 in Berlin to Jewish parents, while his paternal grandfather was famed psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. He and his family moved to the United Kingdom in 1933 to escape the quickly rising Nazi party.

He was inclined towards the surrealist movement at the beginning of his painting career, but later shifted towards the realist style and stuck to it.