John Meyer, a leading South African artist who is represented bvy Everard Read Galleries, was recently commissioned to paint Queen Elizabeth II. With his usual attention to detail (and one eye on the historical narrative). Meyer, mindful of her 90th birthday, chose to conjure an image of her 69 years ago as a young princess, riding on a beach in South Africa in 1947, in what must have been a rare moment of unbridled freedom for the young woman who was to become the world’s oldest reigning monarch, as well as Britain's longest-lived.

Queen Elizabeth II, during her 64 year reign, is the most portrayed human in recorded history, by no lesser artists than Lucian Freud and Andy Warhol. Meyer's remarkable portrayal adds to this tradition. One can only imagine how this invocation of a time so utterly different from the present must have been received. It is hoped that this unique painting will find its way to one of her special homes.