This Kate Middleton Portrait Sparked Some Harsh Comparisons

When it comes to art, as the old adage goes, everyone's a critic — but the critics seemed especially sharp-tongued about Paul Emsley's 2012 portrait of Catherine, Princess of Wales. It didn't take long after the oil portrait was debuted to the public for armchair and professional critics alike to start picking the canvas apart bit by bit.

The Independent called the portrait of their princess "catastrophic" and said Kate Middleton's "cheeks incline towards the hamsterish." The The Guardian had similarly harsh words about the close-up visage, comparing the princess' looks to a character out of the "Twilight" franchise. The author even went so far as to suggest that Kate's pursed-lipped expression is a sign that she's sucking in vampire fangs.

Considering the world has watched the stunning transformation of Kate Middleton from polite and reserved schoolgirl to glamorously chic princess since the late 2000s, news of an unflattering image of Kate seemed both unbelievable and remarkably rare. Of course, if you were to ask the man behind the portrait, he would say he did a fine job.

Paul Emsley is an award-winning artist who, in addition to Kate Middleton, has painted portraits of other notable public figures, like Nelson Mandela and fellow British painter, Michael Simpson. Still, not even the distinguished accolade of winning the BP Portrait Award in 2007 was enough to save him from the harsh scrutiny of his rendition of Catherine, Princess of Wales. Despite the backlash, Emsley told The Washington Post that he wasn't worried about it.

"There's a quotation an American friend of mine, the wife of an American artist, sent me in support," Emsley told the outlet. "When Picasso was told his portrait of Getrude Stein did not look like her, his response was, 'It will.' People will become acclimatized over time to something which is not something that they were expecting. I wanted to do something which had some sort of a sense of mystery, of presence, of stillness about it."

As for the subject, Kate had told Emsley she wanted the painting to depict her and her body language in a relaxed, everyday state, as opposed to a regal, formal one. The painter said Kate was pleased with the result, and although he did feel a twinge of remorse when the negative comments kept flooding in, he ultimately settled on contentment, too. "As an artist, you do understand you're never going to please everybody," Emsley said.

While Catherine, Princess of Wales, is normally lauded in the media for her stunning beauty, timeless fashion sense, and inimitable grace, her divisive 2012 portrait would not be the last time an image of the princess was intensely criticized and attacked. Except the next time this would happen, the controversy would be tangled up in a scandal that shook the world in early 2024: the case of the missing Kate Middleton.

Before the princess made her heartbreaking cancer announcement, speculation had begun to swirl around why Kate hadn't been seen for weeks after what Kensington Palace described as a "planned abdominal surgery." On March 10, 2024, Kate shared her first post-op surgery in honor of Mother's Day in the U.K., posing with her three children. However, multiple editing inconsistencies in the image caused conspiracies to explode amid serious fake photo-op accusations, which only added to the scandal and public intrigue around Middleton's absence. 

The mother of three quickly took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to address the hubbub. "Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing," the princess admitted. "I wanted to express my apologies for any confusion the family photograph we shared yesterday caused." Indeed, as she and portrait artist Paul Emsley have learned, everyone is a critic.