Royal fans savage 'embarrassing' Princess of Wales portrait: 'It's an insult'

A new royal portrait has been revealed - this time of the Princess of Wales - but fans and casual art critics alike have ripped the artwork to shreds (not literally, although that would be very Banksy-esque of them) saying the creation is an 'insult' to Princess Kate. The portrait, by British-Zambian artist Hannah Uzor, featured on the front cover of Tatler and was inspired by Kate's recent cancer diagnosis.

Depicting the Princess in a floor-length Jenny Packham gown with embellished shoulders and the 'lover's knot' tiara, the artwork is a portrayal of Kate from when she attended the 2022 State Banquet at Buckingham Palace - the first of King Charles' reign. In a video for Tatler, Uzor explained that she aimed to capture 'the soul' of her subject and that she 'spent a lot of time looking at her.'

Unfortunately, the end result was not well received with hundreds of people taking to social media to share their opinions on the portrait.

Fans savage new royal portrait

"A very poor portrait which totally fails to represent the beauty and elegance of the Princess of Wales," one aggrieved fan wrote on Instagram.

"This is not HRH The Princess of Wales. God knows who it is, but it is not HRH," added someone else.

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"Is this a joke?" another person asked.

"I am not a Kate fan but that portrait is an insult," offered another.

Things were no friendlier over on X where someone else argued that the artwork was offensive.

"That portrait on the cover is horrid! It's an insult to HRH Catherine Princess of Wales." they wrote.

One person decided to find the funny in the situation quipping, "This is Kate Middleton's first official portrait as Princess of Wales. She’s been missing so long, both the artist and the royal family forgot what she looks like."

"This portrait of our lovely Princess Catherine The Princess of Wales by Tatler is embarrassing and should never have gone into publication," said another.

"That's the most horrific portrait of the Princess of Wales I've ever seen!," someone else added. "Who ever did it should be ashamed & embarrassed!"

Some people defended the artist

It wasn't all sass and savagery though as some people came to the artist's defence and suggested that the portrait wasn't so bad.

"Please stop," someone wrote. "I feel so sorry for the artist, Hannah Uzor, who was inspired to paint this lovely portrait of The Princess of Wales. Simply appreciate it as a work of art and move on. Uzor is very talented."

"To be fair, it's a bit hard to do a drawing from life at present," someone else wrote.

Another simply said, "I like it."

The divisive portrait of Kate comes less than a week after a controversial portrait of King Charles was also met with criticism from royal fans.

British artist Jonathan Yeo, attended the unveiling of his artwork at Buckingham Palace, telling the small crowd that the only guidance he received from the company who commissioned the portrait was the size and to portray the monarch in uniform.

"The only guidance they gave me was the specific scale because they had other portraits of that size," he said, as reported by Hello!. "And there was a preference for it to be in uniform, probably Welsh Guards."

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He continued, "The red was inspired by the Welsh Guards, but I wanted the painting to be a little more contemporary and not get in the way of seeing the face and the personality".

On Instagram, one observer seemed to make a dig at Yeo's creation while commenting on the portrait of Princess Kate, writing, "Who is making decisions on these commissions? The portraits are getting weirder and weirder. This is quite amateurish, does not resemble HRH. Considering what she’s going through, I guess this will give her a good chuckle."

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