King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia, according to photographer Annie Leibovitz and her inspiration in ‘Las Meninas’ by Velázquez

The Bank of Spain revealed this Tuesday the portraits of the kings of Spain that he commissioned from Annie Leibovitza diptych in which Don Felipe wears the Army’s gala uniform and Doña Letizia wears a black pleated silk tulle dress and a pink silk gala cape by designer Cristóbal Balenciaga.

For five hours, the Kings posed for photographer Annie Leibovitz (United States, 1949) on February 7 in the Gasparini Hall of the Royal Palace of Madrid and the result is reminiscent of Las Meninasby Velázquez.

This diptych of the Kings is printed with UV drying ink (low temperature photochemical process) on primed polyester canvas.

“They are very pictorial portraits in whose composition we find allusions to Velázquez, court portraitist,” Yolanda Romero, curator of the exhibition ‘The Tyranny of Cronos’, in which these images are framed, explained to EFE this Monday.

The Spanish painter was able to create the illusion in the viewer of entering or attending the scene, “a fact that also appears in Leibovitz’s images, which is what is first striking about real photographs.”

The composition of the diptych is analyzed in two parts: In the first, King Felipe VI wears the dress uniform of the Army and is surrounded by all the elements of the classic portrait “from the mirror, to the table, a chandelier or an open door with curtains,” explained Romero.

In the second, the queen enters the chamber, flooded with natural light, “stripped of the royal diadem and the sash of Charles III,” the commissioner added.

The large photographs: 223.52 x 170.18 cm each, show the kings with the pomp, pageantry and palace splendor of the Bourbon line.

“A work in which Leibovitz has been able to capture the tradition of Spanish institutional portraiture,” stressed Romero, who, in addition to curating the exhibition, is curator of the painting collection of the Bank of Spain.

This diptych of the Kings is the first portrait of the Bank of Spain in which photography has been used, and will be added to the collection of this institution that reflects its history since its creation, in 1782, at the initiative of King Carlos III, when It was born as the Bank of San Carlos.

These photographs will be in the royal gallery along with the portraits of Charles III made by Goya; that of Carlos IV by Mariano Salvador Maella; Isabel II, by Federico de Madrazo, that of Alfonso XIII, painted by José Villegas y Cordero or more recently, that of kings Juan Carlos I and Sofía made by Carmen Laffón.

The portraits, which cost 137,000 euros, were made on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the reign of Felipe VI, which will be commemorated on June 19, to which are added the 20 years of marriage, which will be completed on next May.

The contract with the famous American photographer also included the portrait of the former governor Pablo Hernández de Cos, at a cost of 79,000 euros, which was presented at this same event.

The diptych of the Kings can be seen in the exhibition The tyranny of Cronuswhich will be open to the public from November 27 to March 29, 2005, subject to reservation of invitations, in the exhibition hall of the Bank of Spain.