It's the Cabbage Patch Queen

The painter himself admits the monarch known for her dignity and reserve bears more than a passing resemblance to a Cabbage Patch doll.

The chubby cheeks, gurning mouth and cartoonish eyes make Elizabeth II look remarkably like the endearing dolls that every child wanted in the 1980s.

And that, no doubt, is why the portrait has been hailed by the Tate Modern as an 'interesting, imaginary work'.

American artist George Condo, whose works usually sell for six figures, claims to have modelled his work on the great Spanish artist Velazquez, imagining how the monarch might look 'on a bad day'.

'Her puffed- out cheeks are the Queen's nightmare,' he declared. 'But she is smiling, too. I suppose it is a bit like a caricature or Cabbage Patch doll but that's also because people like Cabbage Patch dolls.'

He said he was drawn to the project by 'all that history and all that jewellery'. 'What I am trying to do is get over how the Queen imagines herself,' he added, before revealing that he had even considered painting the Queen as a nude.

'I was told that you are not allowed to show members of the Royal Family nude in a public place,' he told the Sunday Times. [But] I'll be working on it next.' The oil painting was commissioned by Massimiliano Gioni, curator of the

Tate Modern's Wrong Gallery, where it hangs next to a work by Jackson Pollock. 'The norm is, well, huge respect for your queen. This picture is not of course disrespectful,' Mr Gioni said. Mr Condo completed a series of nine portraits of the Queen. One showed her with a carrot spearing her head, while another was a Picasso-style abstract.

A spokesman for Tate Modern, which was opened by the Queen in May 2000, said the portrait would be on show for several months, adding: 'George Condo is a well-respected artist and this is an imaginary portrait. Lots of works of contemporary art are done in this way.'

But Brendan Kelly of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters described it as 'embarrassingly bad'. 'When you paint a portrait of anybody you should create a legend,' he said. 'This will just create a fuss.'