The Wallace Collection exhibition, titled The Queen and Her Corgis (the queen and her corgi dogs), shows nine photographs taken throughout the life of Elizabeth IIeach capturing a different period and their unique bond with their famous pets.
“It’s a very small but really wonderful exhibition, showing nine photographs of the queen and her corgis and going through her life every ten years,” Xavier Bray, curator of the exhibition, explains enthusiastically to AFP.
These short-legged puppies, with pointed ears and long backs are inseparable from the image of Elizabeth II. The British monarch bred about thirty of them over generations, with a preference for the Pembroke breed, but she also created the “dorgi”, a cross between the corgi and the dachshund.
The photographs, chosen from a collection of more than 5,000 images, range from candid snapshots to more orchestrated portraits. The oldest image in the collection dates from July 1936. and shows 10-year-old Princess Elizabeth playing with two of her corgis, Jane and Dookie, in London.
“You see the queen, but from a very different perspective, through this extraordinary relationship she had with her corgis,” says Bray.
One of the images on display was taken on September 19, 2022. On the steps of Windsor Castle, Muick and Sandy waited, escorted by two guards, for the funeral procession that left London after the monarch’s grand funeral to tour the long avenue that leads to the castle, where Elizabeth II was buried in privacy.
Forever associated with the queen, these two corgis were given as a gift to the monarch, who died on September 8 at the age of 96, by her son Andrés.