Elspeth A. Lodge

Photo of the Duchess of Cambridge via wtop.com

It’s a well known fact that the Duchess of Cambridge will pose for a painting for the National Portrait Gallery; it is tradition and Kate is also a royal patron there. The question is, has someone else beaten the Gallery to the canvas? Will the Gallery portrait be the first of the Duchess or has the royal family already commissioned someone else to paint her first portrait? Recent news suggests the latter might be the case.

“Swanks at the National Portrait Gallery are putting it about that their outfit will soon be first to commission a portrait of the Duchess of Cambridge,” reports the Daily Mail’s Quentin Letts. However, he suggests this might not be the case; that one of his operatives in London recently spotted the Duchess of Cambridge leaving the London studio of portrait painter Nicky Philipps. As is expected, the studio will not confirm this to the media or that she is working on the portrait.

This would not be shocking or an outlandish accusation though, as Philipps has painted both Prince William and Prince Harry, as well as the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland (Good friends of Prince Charles and parents of Pippa Middleton’s close friend George Percy): “She may not be groovy — not edgy enough for bien pensant metropolitans—“ says Letts in his piece, “but in the more discreetly upmarket houses of our kingdom she is regarded as the bumble-bee’s knees.”