Elizabeth: Queen & Icon

Elizabeth: Queen & Icon celebrates the 80th birthday of Her Majesty The Queen in 2006.

From her childhood, and particularly as Queen, her face has been captured repeatedly on film and canvas. Many of these representations of The Queen have been the source of several stamps, and even more proposed stamp designs.

Definitive stamps are printed in their millions. They travel the world as miniature ambassadors for Britain. An image of our Head of State on a stamp creates a powerful national icon. Elizabeth: Queen & Icon takes a closer look at some of these philatelic portraits.

• Timeline
• Princess Elizabeth
• The Queen through the decades: 60th birthday stamps
• The Queen through the decades: Golden Jubilee stamps
• The Dorothy Wilding portrait
• Postal stationery: the Cecil Thomas portrait
• Postal stationery: Letterpress designs
• Off with her head!
• Gillick head & Gentleman cameo
• The Gentleman Album
• The Machin head
• The Snowdon photograph
• The 80th birthday stamps

The free exhibition brochure is an essential guide to this exhibition:

Elizabeth: Queen & Icon exhibition brochure (PDF, 900KB)

There are more royal stamps in the April 2006 Stamp of the Month.