AN artist who has had a pope, a prince and a prime minister sit for him, brought some fleeting jubilee glamour to a market town on Friday.

Darren Baker’s portraits hang in St James’s Palace and Downing Street and some of his sitters include Prince Charles, former Prime Minister Tony Blair and the late Pope John Paul II. He is also an official 2012 Olympic Games artist.

But yesterday he bought one of his most iconic pictures - of the Queen - to the North Yorkshire market town of Northallerton, ahead of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations.

It went on display for just two hours at the Platinum Galleries on South Parade and on Monday morning it will be back in the hands of the Royal British Legion, which commissioned the work for its 90th anniversary.

Gallery-owner Andy Close said they had first requested a visit from Darren Baker a couple of years ago and they were delighted to get the opportunity to display the royal portrait during the Diamond Jubilee year.

The remarkable likeness will soon be hung in the National Portrait Gallery for a jubilee exhibition of royal portraits.The remarkable likeness was originally unveiled by Princess Anne at a service in Westminster Abbey. It has already been on show at the prestigious Clarendon Fine Art Gallery and the Savoy in London.

The Huddersfield-born artist, who is currently in negotiations to paint the current Prime Minister David Cameron, said: “It took two years to get the sitting organised. I had two sittings with her and then it took 200 hours to get the portrait finished.

“She was just lovely. It was a week after William and Kate’s royal wedding and she was just talking about that. I just wanted to give her a cuddle.

“It will be going on this year’s jubilee tour of royal portraits and I’m going to be doing some painting with Rolf Harris for a BBC programme later this year to celebrate the Jubilee. I think he’ll be finished a lot sooner than me.”