Conversation Piece at the Royal Lodge, Windsor
Conversation Piece at the Royal Lodge, Windsor is an oil-on-canvas painting by Herbert James Gunn, completed in 1950. It measures about 151 by 100 cm and is in the National Portrait Gallery, London.
The picture shows King George VI, Queen Elizabeth, and their daughters, Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret, having afternoon tea in the Drawing Room at the Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park. It was commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery in 1950, and Gunn was chosen personally by the King and Queen.
Photographer Paul Laib photographed Gunn in the Royal Lodge Drawing Room in 1950 during preparation for the work. Gunn’s working sketch was later in Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother’s collection at Clarence House.
The scene includes paintings by John Wootton and Thomas Lawrence on the walls. Gunn faced a tricky detail when placing Elizabeth’s corgi; he used a paper cut-out of the dog to position it just right.
The painting’s title refers to the “conversation piece” genre—informal portraits of a small group in a social setting. It presents a domestic, postwar image of the monarchy that British people could recognize as familiar.
Reception and later history: The Times called it a carefully made but somewhat plain record. Some critics later found it dull. The National Portrait Gallery did not yet have a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II and considered commissioning a successor to Gunn’s piece. There were mixed hopes within the Gallery about approaching the Queen. Eventually Pietro Annigoni was commissioned; his portrait of the Queen, “Her Majesty in Robes of the British Empire,” was revealed in 1970.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 18:12 (CET).