King Charles’s Childhood Drawings of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip Are Heading to Auction

When he was a boy, King Charles sketched his own royal portraits of his parents. Now those two childhood drawings are expected to fetch thousands of dollars at auction on Friday.

The sweet duo of crayon-and-pencil doodles made by the then-prince show his “Mummy” and “Papa,” known to the general public, of course, as Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip. Charles originally created the art around 1953 or 1955 when he was about 5 or 6 years old, according to Hansons Auctioneers. The sketches are estimated to fetch between £5,000 to £10,000 ($6,300 to $12,600), but they could go for more depending on bidders.

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The portrait of the queen, who passed away in September, shows her in a yellow dress with red lines, red jewelry, and what appears to be purple gloves and a purse. The rendering of Prince Philip, meanwhile, shows him wearing a suit, a button-up shirt and a bowtie. The king’s other drawings up for grabs include images of birds and a rabbit.

The art pieces are part of a larger royal memorabilia collection that includes 10 other drawings made by the king, royal letters, family photos, Christmas cards, and a 1937 Buckingham Palace manuscript menu diary.

Author, journalist, and royal correspondent Henry Ramsay Maule collected the items between the 1950s and the ’70s. He then stowed the belongings away for over three decades until his death in 1981.

“This is an extraordinarily touching collection,” Charles Hanson, owner of Hansons Auctioneers, said in a statement. “These poignant childhood drawings and emotive photos remind us that away from the pomp, pageantry, and demands of serving the nation, our royals treasure the ordinary, every-day moments of family life. Given a crayon and pencil, nearly every child’s first drawings depict their family. Our King was no different. This collection will help people relate to him even more in his role as our monarch.”

And it seems King Charles’s artistic skills only grew from there. The royal made an estimated £2 million from sales of copies of his watercolor paintings created from 1997 to 2016, making him one of the country’s best-selling living artists, The Telegraph reported.

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