"Lego Set 'Royals'"

Digital painting by Bo Lessing, 2272

One-of-a-kind original artwork

Work ID: 98-50

No. of versions: 01

Size: 12.4 MP

This work is available!

This depiction of an advert shows a huge doll house that looks like a palace with a group of eight "Royals" that resemble an aristocratic family and lifestyle from far more than a century ago. There are seven robot children of various age, from toddler to teen, grouped around their grand or grand-grandmother, the robot queen, being Elizabeth II, as the artist tells us. They are posed on antique chairs and dressed conservatively as an homage of an Anni Leibovitz photo from the 21st century, which again was an homage to the traditional representational painting of royalty before ca. 1950 - or just Annie's way to exploit the Leibovitz' brand name by creating nostalgic kitsch for big money.

The "Royals" robot set shown here is probably the "Medium" version, since the robots all seem half the size of their owner, the woman shown on the right of the painting. The owner indicates that the set is targeting an adult robot collectors market.

The blatant offer of the chance to win a palace when ordering now, points in the direction that Lego wants to sell to a rather less sophisticated group, who also might be lured into a purchase by the ad using words like "posh!" and "[...] the Queen's English".

The woman with the unnaturally large breasts sits in a pose of contemplation and appears to emerge in the world of the royals at the end of their social acceptance, maybe with a certain degree of nostalgia and compassion.

Why did Lessing call this robot set "Royals" although it only shows the youngest and a queen over 80 years of age? The omission of the next generation of the queen's successors, the prince and next king, his spouse and his brothers with family, is not shown because it exemplifies the void that will follow the demise of the queen.