After many months of waiting, there is now a date to see the long-awaited portrait of the Kings made by Annie Leibovitz, one of the best photographers in the world and 2013 Prince of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities. The new image, surely one of the highest artistic quality that has been made to date of Don Felipe and Doña Letizia, vIt will be released on Tuesday, November 26, and a day later it will be exhibited in an exhibition.n which will be open to the public in the collection of the Bank of Spain, the entity that commissioned the portrait painter.
© House of His Majesty the King / Estela de CastroIn addition to the new snapshot of the Kings, you will also see that of the former governor, Pablo Hernández de Cos. They will be the latest additions to the Bank’s gallery of effigies and the first time that the medium used for these portraits is photography. In the exhibition, titled The tyranny of Cronusyou can also see a selection of watches and works from the Collection, made by artists from diverse backgrounds and historical moments, which question and transgress the hegemonic conception of time in capitalist societies.
© House of HM the King / Estela de Castro
In this way, Annie Leibovitz’s new work will join the gallery of official portraits, which reflects almost uninterruptedly the history of the institution, from the creation of the Bank of San Carlos in 1782 to the present day. This set is not exclusively made up of effigies of personalities involved in the management of the banking establishment (directors, governors or finance ministers), but it also represents the different monarchs who have reigned throughout the life of the institution since Charles III, Charles IV and MarÃa Luisa of Parma, to those of the kings Juan Carlos and Sofia. In this sense, it constitutes one of the best galleries that exist to study the evolution of the official portrait in Spain, since the times of the Enlightenment.
© GTRESIt includes many of the great portrait painters who have worked in our country, starting with Francisco de Goya, author of the first six commissioned by the Banco de San Carlos, continuing with Vicente Lopez or, more recently, artists such as Isabel Quintanilla or Carmen Laffón. It is in this context where the creation of the portraits of the current Kings must be placed.
© GTRESA great portrait to close a great year
What will be one of the great portraits of the Kings par excellence will serve to close a 2024 in which Don Felipe has completed ten years as sovereign and in which they have also been fulfilled 20 years of their marriage (they married on May 22, 2004). This was the first time that Felipe and Letizia had been invited to a pose by an institution other than the Royal House, since until now their official photos had always emerged as an initiative of the Zarzuela Palace. His last images of this type date from February 2020, when Estela de Castro did a report in which she also immortalized Princess Leonor and Infanta SofÃa.
© Getty Images
Annie Leibovitz photographed the Kings on February 7 at the Royal Palace on a day where the building closed its doors to the public and Don Felipe and Doña Letizia cleared their agenda throughout the day to be able to dedicate themselves completely to this pose. The monarch arrived shortly before 1:30 p.m., when he was captured by the cameras Europa Pressentering through the main entrance, just the one in the Plaza de Oriente, in front of the Teatro Real. Throughout the day there were continuous movements of cars entering and leaving the Palace.
© GTRESThe photographer of the stars and royalty
The Kings are great admirers of the 75-year-old American photographer. Don Felipe defined her at the Prince of Asturias Award ceremony as a “universal” photographer and one of the people “who has developed his work with more intensity and with more aesthetic sense.” All of his works, he said, “become a striking spectacle, a sculptural image, full of beauty. For the portrait of the Kings, Leibovitz has charged, according to EFE, 150,000 dollars (about 140,000 euros) as established in the contract that his agent, Karen Mulligan, signed in September 2023.
© GTRESThe expectation is maximum to see the work of a woman whose motto is: “May my portraits resist the passage of time.” Since beginning her career, Annie Leibovitz has worked for major international magazines and She is the author of some of the most iconic images of the 20th century such as that of John Lennon and Yoko Ono hugging, the nude of a pregnant Demi Moore or Richard Nixon leaving the White House, among many others. Mythical they are his portraits of Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom on the occasion of her 90th birthday and which hang in the National Portrait Gallery in London, where she was seen walking through Windsor Castle, with her daughter, Princess Anne and with some of her great-grandchildren.