On the day she reaches the age of 90, the Queen puts the future of the monarchy front and centre in an official birthday portrait by Annie Leibovitz.
On her lap is the newest addition to the Royal family, 11-month-old Princess Charlotte, while two-year-old Prince George, the future king, stands at her knee.
The Queen also chose to share the spotlight with her three other great-grandchildren Mia Tindall, aged two, who was given the responsibility of holding the Queen’s handbag; Savannah and Isla Phillips, aged five and three, and her two youngest grandchildren James, Viscount Severn, aged eight, and his sister Lady Louise Windsor, aged 12.
The pose has deliberate echoes of portraits of Queen Victoria, whose record reign the Queen surpassed last year, and who was often photographed surrounded by royal children, with the youngest in her arms.
The portrait, taken in the Green Drawing Room at Windsor Castle just after Easter, is one of three pictures by the American photographer released by Buckingham Palace.
In the second, the Queen poses on a sofa in the White Drawing Room of Windsor Castle with her daughter, the Princess Royal, acknowledging her relentless and largely unrecognised work on behalf of Her Majesty.
The Princess, 65, is known as the hardest-working member of the Royal family, as she sometimes carries out the most engagements in any given year, but rarely receives any credit in the media.
The third picture shows the Queen with her beloved dogs in the private grounds of Windsor Castle – her two corgis Willow and Holly and her dorgie cross-breeds Vulcan and Candy.
Leibowitz previously photographed the Queen in 2007 to mark her State visit to the US, and has described her in the past as “cranky” and “feisty”.
The 2007 photoshoot was filmed for a BBC documentary and led to the “Queengate” incident when a trailer was edited to give the false impression that the Queen had stormed out in a huff, when in fact she was on her way into the room. It led to the resignation of the BBC1 controller Peter Fincham.
The Duke of Cambridge has described choosing a present for the Queen as “the hardest question ever” as he prepared to join 60 guests celebrating Her Majesty’s 90th birthday at Windsor Castle.
The Duke also disclosed that there were times when he and Prince Harry were younger when the Queen wanted to “smack us over the head” because they made so much noise.
But he paid tribute to the “strong female influence” she has been since his mother Diana, Princess of Wales died 19 years ago.
Tonight’s private party at Windsor Castle, hosted by the Prince of Wales, will be the biggest gathering of the Royal family in years, with more relations than at the annual Christmas get-together.
Royal sources said that “almost everyone” at the dinner will be related to the Queen. As well as her four children and their spouses, there will be eight grandchildren, five great-grandchildren, her nephew Viscount Linley, niece Lady Sarah Chatto, and cousins the Duke of Gloucester, the Duke of Kent, Prince Michael of Kent and Princess Alexandra.
If all of their children and grandchildren are invited, there will be few places left at the table.
The dinner will be held in the grand Waterloo Chamber at the Castle, created to display paintings of the Battle of Waterloo commissioned by George IV.
It is reportedly being organised with the help of Michael Fawcett, the Prince of Wales’s former valet who resigned in 2003 after allegations that he was selling on official gifts but who now has his own company that is regularly hired by the Prince.
All of the guests will have agonised over the intractable question of what to buy the Queen for her birthday.
In an interview with Sky News, the Duke of Cambridge said: “What do you give the queen? That’s like the hardest question ever. So we regularly have a lot of debates. Harry and I have decided to have a joint present this year and it makes it a bit easier when we can share the responsibility of getting it right.”
Recalling childhood memories of the Queen as a grandmother, he said: “I think that there were moments when she loved the noise... it brought the house to life and it made the real family atmosphere alive and there were other moments when I think she wanted to smack us over the head and tell the noisy children to go next door.”
One one occasion when he and his cousin Peter Phillips were on a quad bike chasing Zara Phillips, who was in a go-cart: “Peter and I managed to herd Zara into a lamppost and the lamppost came down and nearly squashed her and I remember my grandmother being the first person out at Balmoral running across the lawn in her kilt - (she) came charging over and gave us the most almighty bollocking, and that sort of stuck in my mind from that moment on.”
He added: “She’s been a very strong female influence and having lost my mother at a young age, it’s been particularly important to me that I’ve had somebody like the Queen to look up to and who’s been there and who has understood some of the more, um, complex issues when you lose a loved one.
“She’s always been incredibly loving towards the children and I’ve seen her now with Charlotte and George - she's very doting on the children - and particularly Charlotte she's fascinated by what Charlotte gets up to."
The Duke said despite the Queen's own love of horses, she had not got Prince George riding yet, although she had “asked many times”.
“I think more than anything she would love us to be more interested in racing," he said. “Her passion for racing as everyone knows is just second to none. She comes completely alive and really relishes every race she can get to.”
He said his grandmother was always keen to make sure all the members of her family were "finding their own path" and she supported the younger generation updating the way the monarchy did things.
"She likes the idea that we have our own style, it’s a new generation and there’s no point everyone doing it the same way, it’s the modernisation of the Royal Family and how it does stuff that is actually more interesting and keeps it relevant."
Meanwhile the Prince of Wales has said that the Queen’s long life has “defined our age” and described her reign as “the Age of Elizabeth”.
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