When Country Life published Prince George’s drawing of a kingfisher this week, in the special issue guest edited by his father, the first question many readers asked was where a 13-year-old learned to draw like that. The answer, at least in part, is that he comes from a family in which drawing and painting have been a serious pastime for nearly two centuries.
Here are the royals who picked up a brush or a pencil before him.
Queen Victoria: a lifelong sketcher
Queen Victoria drew from childhood until old age. She filled dozens of sketchbooks with portraits of her children, servants, dogs and the landscapes of Scotland and the Isle of Wight, and she was taught by professional artists throughout her life. In 1846 she took a series of drawing lessons from Edward Lear, later famous for his nonsense verse but then known as a gifted landscape painter.
Her drawings of her own family are some of the most affectionate images of the Victorian royal household. A sketch of her eldest son, the future Edward VII, with a parrot, is typical: quick, observant and informal, the opposite of an official portrait. She and Prince Albert also made etchings together in the early years of their marriage.
Prince Philip: the oil painter
The Duke of Edinburgh was a committed amateur painter in oils for much of his adult life, encouraged in part by Edward Seago, the Norfolk landscape painter who accompanied him on a long royal tour in the 1950s. He painted landscapes, interiors and scenes from his travels, and was a knowledgeable collector of contemporary British art.
King Charles: watercolours on the road
King Charles has painted watercolours since his twenties. Seago encouraged him too. He paints landscapes, often at Balmoral and on overseas visits, working outdoors in small formats.
Lithographic prints of his watercolours have been sold for many years to raise money for his charitable foundation. His affection for traditional skills also led him to found the Royal Drawing School in London, which teaches drawing from observation to students of all ages.
The Princess of Wales: art historian and photographer
George’s mother studied history of art at the University of St Andrews and is a keen photographer whose pictures of her children have been used for official birthday portraits. In 2025 she and her three children released a set of sketches they had made of one another in charcoal and ink, without revealing who had drawn which.
Prince George
George’s own interest has surfaced before, including a painting of a reindeer shared in 2022. His kingfisher, made at home in the spring, is the first of his drawings to appear in print, and it chooses one of the hardest subjects in British birdlife, a creature defined by shimmering blue and orange plumage that bird painters have struggled to capture for centuries. We looked at the drawing itself, and the magazine issue it appears in, here.
Talent or practice?
There is no evidence that artistic ability is simply inherited, and art educators tend to stress practice, encouragement and access over any family gift. What the royal family has passed down is less a talent than a habit: time set aside for drawing, materials always to hand, and parents and grandparents who treat sketching as a normal part of life rather than a performance. George appears to have picked up that habit early.