By Eleanor Harding PUBLISHED: 17:00 EST, 10 September 2012 | UPDATED: 01:58 EST, 11 September 2012 In two years’ time she would be Queen, her face printed on millions of stamps and banknotes. But at 23, she was still Princess Elizabeth – and this rare sketch offers a very private glimpse of that young woman, in all her girlish beauty. Drawn in charcoal and red chalk, the portrait shows the princess with rosebud lips and fine features, her large eyes lost in thought. The sketch has come to light ahead of its sale at Bloomsbury Auctions in London. Girlish beauty: The rare sketch shows the Queen - then a princess - at 23 The Queen, right, said she fondly remembered sitting for the artist
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The sketch was drawn in 1950 by impressionist painter Dame Laura Knight
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It has never been in the Royal Collection because Dame Laura made it for her own purposes
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