[Marc]

The first official portrait of the Duchess of Cambridge has been unveiled - and was described by Kate as "amazing".

Award-winning artist Paul Emsley created the large head and shoulders painting of the duchess set against his trademark dark background.

It was commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery, which Kate supports as patron.

At the Duchess' own suggestion it depicts her natural, not official, persona.

Kate, wearing a burgundy dress by Whistles, was joined by her husband the Duke for a private viewing of the painting before it went on display to the public this afternoon.

The royal couple spent around 10 minutes looking at the portrait privately then met Emsley and his wife Susanne and daughter Marie.

Kate has been suffering from a rare form of pregnancy sickness but looked well and smiled as she chatted to the artist.

She told him: "It's just amazing, I thought it was brilliant."

William also had high praise for the painting, saying: "It's beautiful, it's absolutely beautiful."

The Cambridges later attended a private breakfast reception at the London gallery to mark the unveiling.

Among the guests were Kate's parents Carole and Michael Middleton and her brother and sister Pippa and James.

She looks really old :-/

[InOne]

She looks like she's been on a 5 day drinking bender LOL

[Saph]

thats hidious

[MTVN]

Makes her look really old

(just realised Marc already said this)

[Kazanne]

It's really good but DOES age her,the eyes need to sparkle and the skin is too sallow.

[King Gizzard]

I'd want my money back tbh

[Marcus.]

well it some thing

[Niamh.]

eek I wouldn't be happy with that, she looks like she's in her 40's there. She couldn't say much though I suppose

[Livia]

Jesus... I'd be mortified... it's awful. Like everyone's said, it's put years on her.

[Omah]

Originally Posted by Marc

She looks really old :-/

Originally Posted by Saph

thats hidious

Originally Posted by MTVN

Makes her look really old

(just realised Marc already said this)

Originally Posted by Nathan

I'd want my money back tbh

Originally Posted by Niamh.

eek I wouldn't be happy with that, she looks like she's in her 40's there. She couldn't say much though I suppose

Originally Posted by Livia

Jesus... I'd be mortified... it's awful. Like everyone's said, it's put years on her.

Only the hair is hers, the rest is some haggard old biddy .....

[Omah]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/12/wo...ints.html?_r=0

The painting, by Paul Emsley, was unveiled at the National Portrait Gallery on Friday, and if nothing else, it successfully brought out the inner art critic in even non-art critics.

“I hate to be negative,” someone posted on The Guardian’s Web site, “but it’s really tragically awful.”

The biggest complaint about the work, a head-and-shoulders portrait, is that it puts about 20 years, and possibly 20 pounds, on the duchess, who is 31 and as slender as they come (despite being pregnant). It is somewhat hazy, as if it were a photograph that had been heavily airbrushed to disguise the subject’s age wrinkles.

Unfortunately for Mr. Emsley, who is unlikely to produce work that generates this degree of interest anytime soon, most art critics begged to differ.

“It looks as if the painter asked the subject to ‘say cheese!’ and then told her to scram and buy some clothes while he painted the photograph,” David Lee, former editor of Art Review magazine, said in The Daily Mail. “It is perfectly adequate for the boardroom of a supermarket but entirely inadequate for a national collection.”

Waldemar Januszczak, the art critic for The Times of London, said it was the boring type of royal painting “we’ve been really churning out for the last few hundred years in Britain.”

In The Guardian, Charlotte Higgins said the painting made the duchess look undead, like a character in one of the “Twilight” movies. And the Daily Telegraph critic Mark Hudson compared the work to a “mawkish book illustration” that could have happily been used on the cover of a romance novel.

[AnnieK]

It really does age her....she has said she is really pleased with it but realistically she mut be mortified.

I'd still knock one out to it.

[Marc]

Originally Posted by MTVN

Makes her look really old

(just realised Marc already said this)

Thanks mate

[AnnieK]

Originally Posted by Jesus.H.Christ

I'd still knock one out to it.

Hope the artist sees this post....probably the best critique it will get

[Marc]

It's no anniek76 though..

[AnnieK]

Originally Posted by Marc

It's no anniek76 though..

Not sure whether to or or to that Marc

Urgh smilie overload there

[Marc]

How about ?

Originally Posted by Marc

It's no anniek76 though..

Does that mean I have to knock one out to Annie, too?

Give me 5 minutes - I'm not as young as I used to be.

[Marc]

.... Annie would you like to respond.. Jesus seems to be a bit more horny than the literature made out...

[Kizzy]

I like it, and don't happen to think kate is very fresh faced.
One thing I would change however is I wouldn't have gone with the lopsided smile, it is very natural but makes the whole thing unsymmetrical.

[AnnieK]

Originally Posted by Marc

.... Annie would you like to respond.. Jesus seems to be a bit more horny than the literature made out...

is all I can say

[Kizzy]

I like it, and don't happen to think kate is very fresh faced.
One thing I would change however is I wouldn't have gone with the lopsided smile, it is very natural but makes the whole thing unsymmetrical.

[Omah]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/ch...ht-paul-emsley

Kate Middleton is – whatever you think of the monarchy and all its inane surrounding pomp – a pretty young woman with an infectious smile, a cascade of chestnut hair and a healthy bloom. So how is it that she has been transformed into something unpleasant from the Twilight franchise? The first thing that strikes you about Middleton's visage as it looms from the sepulchral gloom of her first official portrait is the dead eyes: a vampiric, malevolent glare beneath heavy lids. Then there's the mouth: a tightly pursed, mean little lip-clench (she is, presumably, sucking in her fangs). And god knows what is going on with the washed-out cheeks: she appears to be nurturing a gobbet of gum in her lower right cheek. The hair is dull and lifeless; the glimpse of earring simply lifts her to the status of Sloaney, rather than merely proletarian, undead.

[Niall]

She looks really really old that's awful.