It may have been overlooked by the majority of the British Musuem’s visitors, but for numismatists and medallists the recent exhibit, Mary Gillick: Modelling the Queen’s Portrait, was little slice of joy.
Designed as part of the celebrations for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, the exhibition celebrated the work of a sculptor who was thrust into the spotlight at the grand age of 71 when her portrait of Queen Elizabeth II was selected to adorn the monarch’s new coinage.
The newspaper headlines of the day didn’t noted merely that Gillick was a widow who had given up her holiday to finish her design. Other papers focussed on the fact that she was a woman of declining years, unlike the 25-year-old queen.
