Queen Ntombi Twala Of Swaziland Royal Edition (F. & S. II.349A)

In Queen Ntombi Twala Of Swaziland Royal Edition (F. & S. II.349A), the Queen’s face is printed in cool pale blue with violet shadows, her lips picked out in warm orange. Above her head, a large rounded headdress glows in yellow and orange, ringed by a crown of jagged black shapes outlined in pale blue. A beaded collar circles her neck, with two decorated panels hanging at the front. A patterned red and yellow garment crosses her shoulder at the lower right. Thin coloured lines in blue, green and pale violet trace her features and clothing, set slightly apart from the image beneath. The flat red ground fills the rest of the sheet, Warhol’s signature sitting at the lower left.

The Reigning Queens series features four ruling queens of the time: Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, Beatrix of the Netherlands, Margrethe II of Denmark and Ntombi Twala of Swaziland, now Eswatini. Each appears in four colourways. Alongside the standard edition of 40, Warhol produced a smaller Royal Edition of 30, finished with diamond dust, which catches the light across the surface of the print. Of the four queens, Ntombi Twala was the least known to Western audiences. Her portraits stand out in the series for their warm, saturated palette.