After refusing to sit for any official portrait as prime minister you might expect that Tony Blair would have hated the experience. But he was buoyant, almost Tiggerish. How come? "It was a few weeks into Gordon Brown coming off the rails," the artist Jonathan Yeo said yesterday.
Blair finally relented and said yes to a portrait shortly before leaving office. The result, released yesterday, will hang in the Great Hall of London's Lincoln's Inn, a room dominated by GF Watts' enormous fresco entitled Justice, A Hemicycle of Lawgivers, but which also contains a portrait of Margaret Thatcher.
Yeo, now one of the UK's leading portrait artists, said that Blair was in a marvellous, bouncy mood when he arrived at the artist's studio last November for his two-hour sitting.
"I can't help but think that his hugely positive good humour and Tigger-like energy might have had something to do with his successor having trouble in the job," he said. "I expected him to look like he did a year previously, when he was still in office, and was appearing pale, drawn and old. But he came bouncing in, looked incredibly healthy, and had colour in his cheeks." It was around the time of Remembrance Day and Blair was wearing a poppy, which Yeo has made one of the most striking elements of the portrait.
Yeo admitted that Iraq was in his mind but said he was not passing judgment. He said: "Of all the things that people remember him for, the war in Iraq is going to be one of the main things that people discuss. I was thinking that I had to find some kind of representation of that, but that it shouldn't be trite or too judgmental.
"Some people see the portrait and say, 'Oh you've made him look incredibly thoughtful, remorseful, and respectful,' and others say, 'You've put him in the dock as a warmonger.' It depends on what you think of him really."
Blair, while happy to have his photograph taken during his years in power, was always peculiarly reluctant to have an official portrait painted. But if he didn't enjoy the experience he didn't give it away.
Yeo, son of the Conservative MP and former minister Timothy Yeo, said: "He chatted the whole time in the studio. I always assure people that I don't break any confidences so I can't really tell you any personal things. He was very optimistic about his new job [as Middle East envoy] and was in a great mood."
The portrait was commissioned by Lincoln's Inn where Blair trained as a barrister.
Yeo is fast establishing a reputation as the man to paint the portraits of public figures; previous sitters include Prince Philip, David Cameron, William Hague, Dennis Hopper, and Rupert Murdoch in a painting commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery.