Among the treasure of the royal collection are paintings from Van Dyck, Rembrandt, a drawing from Leonardo da Vinci and a Warhol. But one of the Queen’s most favoured pictures was a colourful canvas of a dozen of her favourite dogs by lesser-known Jewish artist Cindy Lass.

The painting of seven of the royal dogs, which Cindy created in 2006 for the Queen’s birthday in 2006, was hung inside the Queen’s private quarters. It was created from 12s photographs of the dogs – four of them were dogs who had died and two of them were living ones - sent by the Queen’s lady in waiting.

"I got a call from the Palace after I’d started doing celebrity dog portraits," recalls Cindy, who lives in St John’s Wood. Other dogs she’s painted belong to Bill Clinton and Elton John. "And when I took too long, I would get phone calls asking for me to hurry up but I had the kids and everything else – at that point I only considered it a hobby and wasn’t even calling myself an artist."

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Artist Cindy Lass presents Buckingham Palace with a unique painting of the Queen's Corgis, which has been commissioned by HRH Queen Elizabeth II on July 13, 2006 (Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images)

Cindy is a dog lover but was flummoxed at one of the dogs she was asked to paint. ‘It looked rather, well, mattified,’ she recalls. "I thought there was something wrong with and phoned the lady-in-waiting asking what was wrong with the corgi. But she replied in her rather plummy accent, ‘Oh no, that is a dorgi.'

"I asked what that was and she replied, ‘It is the result of a relationship between a Dachshund and a corgi."

The painting was finished in time for the Queen’s birthday and the picture was apparently an instant hit. A print of the original was also hung at the Kennel Club which the Queen was a patron of.

"The lady-in-waiting said: ‘She absolutely loves it; it makes her smile.' I did ask if I could come and bring a sick child from a hospital I was helping to come and see it but I was told that as it was in the Queen’s private quarters, I would not be able to for security reasons.’"

Cindy also received a letter from the Queen thanking her for the work and was later told that the painting had been hung just outside of the Queen’s bedroom.

For Cindy knowing that the Queen loved one of her paintings has always felt like a special honour – particularly because of the kudos it gave her mother. "My mother died in November but I remember how she was just over the moon. She was the person who encouraged me to paint and she loved the Queen so it felt like a special honour."