The first official portrait of Kate, the duchess of Cambridge and wife of Britain's Prince William, was unveiled in London Friday - two days after her 31st birthday.
Kate, who is pregnant, and William attended the unveiling in London's National Portrait Gallery, where the oil painting can be viewed by the public from Friday.
The admission-free National Portrait Gallery, on London's Trafalgar Square, is home to more than 3,000 portraits of prominent figures, ranging from Tudor monarchs to contemporary models and rock
stars.
Kate was reported to have described the image, for which she sat in the summer of 2012, as "amazing." Its creator, Scottish artist Paul Emsley, said Kate had asked to be "portrayed naturally."
"She struck me as enormously open and generous and a warm person," he said. "After initially feeling it was going to be an unsmiling portrait I think it was the right choice in the end to have her smiling - that is really who she is."
But some critics were not convinced. Art critic Waldemar Januszczak described the portrait, in sombre colours, as "rather dour" and making the duchess "older than she is."
Emsley, who grew up in South Africa before moving to Britain in 1996, has previously painted former South African President Nelson Mandela and Nobel Prize author V S Naipaul.