News from QEST

The portrait by Rupert Alexander (1996) of Her Majesty The Queen was unveiled to a blaze of international publicity and will be hung in the Council Room of the Royal Warrant Holders Association in London. This new portrait was the last in a series by the artist, Rupert Alexander, 35, who had painted HRH The Prince of Wales and HRH The Duke of Edinburgh at the age of 23; the youngest artist to paint a member of the British Royal Family since the 17th Century.

The artist had three sittings with the Queen at Buckingham Palace. "During the sittings I painted oil sketches to record the tone and colour," Alexander explains, "and to experiment with various gestures to find what best expressed those elements of her character I was trying to capture. I decided to limit the portrait to head and shoulders as I wanted to focus on the more human and intimate aspects of her character, rather than cluttering the painting with the formal symbols of her public role."

Alexander studied painting at the Florence Academy of Art and Charles Cecil Studios, having been awarded a QEST scholarship in 1996. Richard Peck, Secretary of the Royal Warrant Holders Association, which endows QEST, said, "We are delighted with this portrait. It has been tremendous to see Rupert become more established since he received his QEST scholarship at the age of 21, and he has achieved an excellent reputation. He is such an inspiration to all of the QEST scholars starting out today."

Further information:www.rupertalexander.com

Josephine Beney (2007) has been taking a year out from her Conservation Studies at The City and Guilds of London Art School whilst gaining work experience in Munich. Since arriving there in November 2008, she has been restoring two carved, gilded Ludwig II postaments for the Bavarian Castles & Palaces Administration, with whom she completed a three-month summer internship last year. These two objects are now on display in the prestigious "China und Bayern" exhibition at the Bavarian National Museum; whilst the piece that she worked on last summer, a small children’s carriage that was featured in a previous edition of Excel, is currently on display in the V&A's "Baroque" exhibition.

"Since completing the work on the postaments, I have been working with a freelance conservator to clean, consolidate, repair and retouch a suite of furniture in the Prinz Carl Palais in the centre of Munich. This historic building belongs to the Bavarian government and is used to host functions such as ambassadorial receptions and state visits. On our first day of work we were briefly interupted by the Bavarian Prime Minister himself, who took a break from a photoshoot to come and see what we were up to!"

Picture, right: Retouching a Bergère from the suite in the 'Blue Salon'