The ornate screen which will give the King privacy during the most sacred part of the coronation ceremony has been unveiled.
The hand-embroidered partition which will surround His Majesty on three sides as he is anointed with holy oil has been worked on by a team of 150 people over the past few months.
The open side will face the High Altar on the day, so the King cannot be seen by the congregation inside Westminster Abbey during this particular part of the service; the historic moment is seen as a very private one with God.
The screen’s design was created by iconographer, Aiden Hart, and it is a new addition to the crowning ceremony; the Queen and King George were anointed beneath a canopy, with the process visible to everyone watching in Westminster Abbey.
However, during the Queen’s coronation in 1953, television cameras chose not to broadcast the moment of anointing to viewers back at home.
Nick Gutfreund, who led the project to build the screen, said: “The screen is there to actually provide privacy to the most sacred part of the ceremony. And previously it was a canopy over the top, which actually didn’t provide real privacy. It was more figurative. Now this three-side screen provides absolute privacy during the process.”
The iconographer used a stained-glass window in the Chapel Royal at St James’s Palace as the model for the depictions on the front of the screen. That design features a tree with 56 leaves representing the nations of the Commonwealth with the King’s cipher at its base.Â
“The inspiration for the stained-glass window was requested by His Majesty the King,” Aiden said. “Each and every element of the design has been specifically chosen to form part of the story of this historic screen, from the birds that symbolize the joy and interaction among members of a community living in harmony to the rejoicing angels and the dove that represents the Holy Spirit.”
Staff and students at the Royal School of Needlework at Hampton Court, as well as members of the Worshipful Company of Broderers, Drapers, and Weavers, embroidered the individual leaves in blue with the names of each Commonwealth country stitched in gold thread.
The King and Queen Consort visited the Royal School of Needlework in March to see the screen being created in person.
The cloth background is made of wool from Australia and New Zealand woven and finished in UK mills and can be used by the Prince of Wales when he becomes King.
In another nod to the King’s commitment to sustainability, the screen is held up by a wooden pole framework made from a windblown oak tree from the royal estate at Windsor originally planted by the Duke of Northumberland in 1765. There are two mounted eagles sitting on top of the poles which were created in homage to the late Queen’s canopy when she was crowned in 1953.
Hand-embroidered at the top of the partition is the sun, representing God, and birds, including the dove of peace, as well as angels and decorative roses and a quote from medieval mystic Julian of Norwich which reads: “All shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.”
The other two sides of the screen feature a gold cross on red fabric inspired by the colours of the Cosmati Pavement, the intricate mosaic floor at the Abbey where the anointing will take place.
