« Bathing in blood » portrait of King Charles III draws mixed reactions
King Charles III, 75, was captured in the first royal portrait since his ascent to the throne, drawing a wide variety of reactions.
Jonathan Yeo, a British artist who previously painted official portraits for Prime Minister Tony Blair and Sir David Attenborough, painted the monarch in a red Welsh guard uniform with a butterfly on his shoulder, atop a vibrant red background.
The painting, which will hang in London’s Draper’s Hall, took more than two years to complete and got a glance from the king and queen ahead of its Buckingham Palace debut.
Per the BBC, Queen Camilla told Yeo, « Yes, you’ve got him, » upon seeing the piece.
But others were quick to draw comparisons to some quite non-royal imagery, flooding the royal family’s Instagram comments with reactions, before commenting was disabled.
Some noted that the eight-and-a-half-foot-tall portrait “looks like he’s bathing in blood,” while one person stepped forward to ask if he was “supposed to be a Tampax.
