Arnold Machin was not new to royal portraiture. He had already been chosen to produce a likeness of the Queen for the first ever decimal coins in the UK, which went into circulation in 1968, three years before the official change in the currency. The difference between stamp and coin designs is that, whereas the Queen’s image on notes and coins has been periodically updated over the years, her manifestation on postage stamps remains regally unaltered.

To achieve this, Machin first sculpted a bust of the Queen, intending to produce his design from a photograph of this work. The first attempts, done in a photographer’s studio, didn’t work because the studio lights were deemed to have resulted in too harsh an image. Machin went back to basics instead, using an old-fashioned camera and shooting the bust outdoors on a day when there was a slight mist in the air. Working from this template, he produced a deceptively simple version of the Queen’s profile. The aim was to come up with a stamp that would have the same kind of classical appeal as the original Penny Black.

Close examination of the image reveals the highly subtle work that has gone into its creation. The intricacy in both the crown and the Queen’s hair, as well as the delicate shading of the face, combine to give the image an almost three-dimensional look. In early drafts, the royal personage ended at the neck. The Queen asked Machin to show the upper part of her dress too, turning the finished work effectively into a head-and-shoulders image from a disembodied head. Perhaps the separation of head from body evoked unfortunate historical associations for the monarch.

Although the UK is the only country in the world not to be required to identify itself on its stamps, they did usually bear the words ‘Postage and Revenue’, indicating what service the price of the stamp was buying you. With Machin’s design, all typography – with the exception of the postal value – was removed, thus greatly strengthening the iconic appearance of the stamp.

The man behind the stamp

Arnold Machin came from relatively humble Staffordshire beginnings. His artistic flair took him via local art schools to the Royal College of Art in London, where he was awarded a silver medal and travelling scholarship in 1940. Although he had begun his working life at the age of 14 with an apprenticeship painting designs on pottery, he was to achieve renown as a sculptor. In later life, living back in Staffordshire, he turned his hand to garden design, creating enchanting wonderlands of fountains, cascades and grottoes.

Machin died in 1999 at the age of 87. His enduring reputation was such that he had been approached only the year before by the Royal Mint, to see whether he might be interested in entering a design for the Millennium Medal being produced to mark the year 2000.