Snowdon snap gets a royal drubbing in Charles book

SOCIETY snapper the Earl of Snowdon became de facto official photographer of the Royal Family after his marriage to Princess Margaret.

But his celebrated image of Prince Charles and Diana enjoying a picnic with Princes William and Harry gets a drubbing in the National Portrait Gallery’s official book marking the King’s Coronation.

In the foreword to Charles III: The Making Of A King, the gallery’s chief curator, Dr Alison Smith, writes that the bucolic 1991 scene is ‘a rather forced throwback to the kind of conversation piece favoured by the English aristocracy in the 18th century, right down to the horse in the background and oak tree suggesting endurance.

‘With hindsight the sheer contrivance and artificiality of the composition serves to underscore the pretence of harmonious family life at a time when the relationship between the couple was under strain.’

The gallery was less critical of Lord Snowdon’s work when he donated 130 original prints to it in 2014. It showed its gratitude with an exhibition of his work. Indeed, upon his death in 2017, then-director Nicholas

EXPECT tears before bedtime at Charlotte Church’s ‘wellness’ retreat at a £1.5million mansion in Wales. ‘One of my favourite things we do is celestial blessings, where we go out and dance up the dawn with a silent disco,’ the singer says. ‘It’s amazing — some of us are wildly dancing, others are crying at the beauty of the whole situation. It really is a wonderland.’

Cullinan said Snowdon’s ‘contribution to photography has been profound and far-reaching’.

Far more successful at revealing ‘the man behind the mask,’ of King Charles, in Dr Smith’s view, is a 2018 photo of him and Queen Camilla, taken by Alex Lubomirski.

This image finds the couple at ‘affectionate ease in each other’s company. Camilla’s hand on Charles’s thigh adds an intimate touch, in delicate breach perhaps of the royal code of not touching in public’.