Leonard Boden

Leonard Monro Boden (31 May 1911 – 15 November 1999) was a British portrait painter.

Biography Boden was born in Greenock, in Inverclyde, Scotland, in 1911. He was educated at Malsis School in North Yorkshire before attending Sedbergh School in Cumbria. Pope Pius XII was painted by Boden in 1957; it was the only portrait that Pius granted sittings for. Fourteen sittings were held by Boden with the Pope, with many at the Pontiff's summer residence in Castelgandolfo. The portrait was later hung in the Vatican.

Margaret, Boden's wife, often contributed to his portraits, with their efforts having been described as "a joint operation". Boden was upset that, unlike him, his wife was never elected a member of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters.

Royal portraiture Boden painted 19 portraits of members of the British royal family, including ten of Queen Elizabeth II and five of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.

Before painting in oil on canvas, Boden sketched his sitters in sanguine (red chalk). The subjects of his portraits often asked to buy his lifelike sketches. Boden asked for six to eight sittings of an hour and a half each for his royal portraits. His first picture of the Queen hangs alongside a portrait of Prince Philip at the Royal Military Academy in Sandhurst. Four of his portraits of the Queen were painted for government institutions in Canada. The Queen often recommended Boden if asked whether she would prefer any particular artist's depictions of her. Boden's daughter, Daphne, sometimes played the harp for the Queen while her father painted.