Six months of preparations, hundreds of shots and five hours of session have used the renowned photographer Annie Leibovitz in the portraits large size of kings of Spain, Philip VI and Letizia, dressed by Balenciagawhich were presented this Tuesday.
In Leibovitz’s work, the kings appear in a composition in the style of ‘Las meninas’ (1656), the best-known painting of Diego Velazquezin the Royal Palace of Madrid.
These portraitswhich were made on February 7 but were unveiled in an exhibition presented this Tuesday, form a diptych and will be added to the collection of the Bank of Spain.
In the first, the king Philip VIstanding and with a natural pose, wears the uniform large Army label, navy blue, with decorations on the chest.
In the second, the queen enters the chamber, flooded with natural light, wearing a strapless silk tulle dress from the 1940s and a pink silk gala cape from the 1960s, both by the designer Spanish Cristobal Balenciaga.
As complements, the Queen Letizia wears a chaton necklace –jewel that King Alfonso ).
“They are very pictorial, enveloping works, made of fabric, printed in the United States and unique editions,” explained the curator of the exhibition, Yolanda Romero.
The portraits“unofficial” who have had a cost of 137,000 euros, have been made on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the reign of Philip VI (June 19, 2014), to which are added the 20 years of marriage (May 22, 2004).
More about the photographer
Annie Leibovitz (Connecticut, United States, 1949) has worked for Rolling Stone magazine and has made emblematic portraits for vanity fair and Vogue.
- Queen Elizabeth II, the family, has passed through her objective ObamaHillary Clinton or the former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev.
She is also the author of legendary photos like the one of John Lennon and Yoko Ono intertwined in bed, Demi Moore pregnant and naked, Mick Jagger in a bathrobe in an elevator, and the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, who posed with his wife, Priscilla Chan, to immortalize her pregnancy.
The Kings of Spain they met the photographer in October 2013, when he received the Prince of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities.
