Prince William and Duchess Kate are now immortalized with a brush and a canvas.
The royal couple unveiled their first official portrait together on Thursday, sharing photos of a framed painting of the two standing side by side with half smiles, arms around each other’s waists.
British artist Jamie Coreth painted the Duke of Cambridge in a black suit with a teal tie and the Duchess in an emerald green silk dress from The Vampire’s Wife, detailing the texture and pattern with each stroke.
“I’m delighted that this new portrait was unveiled today at the @fitzmuseum_uk in Cambridge,” the couple said wrote on their shared Instagram account with a photo of museum visitors viewing the new artwork.
While the two have official individual portraits that already exist, the newly released one counts as their first portrait together.
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Coreth regarded the commission as “the most extraordinary privilege” of his life.
“I wanted to show Their Royal Highnesses in a way that made them come across as relaxed and approachable as well as elegant and dignified,” Coreth said in a statement.
“Because this is the first portrait to show them together, and especially during their time as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, I wanted the image to evoke a sense of balance between their public and private lives.”
The portrait will be on display at the Fitzwilliam Museum at the University of Cambridge for three years and will later travel to other galleries in Cambridgeshire. In 2023, the artwork will be on display briefly at the National Portrait Gallery in London to mark the institution’s reopening.
Some of the earlier portraits of Duchess Kate and Prince William were panned by art critics in 2014. One of William’s earliest portraits was unveiled in 2010 showing the young royal alongside his brother Prince Harry, created by artist Nicky Philipps. The painting hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in London.
Kate previously wore the dress on a trip to Ireland with William in March 2020, just before the start of the pandemic. She donned the dress for a party hosted by the British Ambassador to Ireland at the end of the first day of their three-day journey.
The public unveiling of the portrait at the museum was the first appointment on the royal couple’s busy schedule Thursday, as they visited the county of Cambridgeshire to celebrate the region and defend the work of charities close to their hearts, including hospices and those who deal with homelessness.
In between, they greeted young fans waiting for them, like outside the museum as they exited the building.
After the museum, they toured East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices in Milton to meet little patients, their families and support staff to mark Children’s Hospice Week. It was the Duchess’s fifth visit, marking her 10th birthday as the charity’s royal patroness.
They stopped by Cambridgeshire County Day Market in Newmarket, where they visited stalls, kicked a football and sampled some beer, to celebrate the best of the county and also to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee.
And they visited Jimmy’s, a housing charity, where they learned about efforts to tackle homelessness in Cambridge, and watched one resident, Eamonn Kelly, to hear how his modular home has helped him learn to live independently.
They also met partners and supporters of Jimmy’s to hear how they help people move from homeless to sheltered.
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