Painting of the Day: A Watercolor of The Queen Mother as a Girl, 1907

Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon
Mabel Hankey, 1907
The Royal Collection

When Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (later Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother) was seven years old, her mother had a delicate pink dress made for her which had been based on a gown from a painting by the Spanish master Velázquez. At the time this special gown was completed, the young lady was photographed in it several times.

Miniature painter Mabel Hankey was commissioned to create a watercolor portrait of Lady Elizabeth in this gown. Two pictures were created—both of them done from photographs rather than painted from life. Both of these miniatures by Hankey are now in the collection of Queen Elizabeth II who cherishes these images of her mother.

Mabel Hankey was born in Bath--the daughter of artist Henry Eddington Hobson. She was the first wife of the painter William Lee Hankey, and, after many years of study, exhibited with the Royal Society of British Artists, the Royal Miniature Society, the Society of Women Artists and the Royal Academy.