He is known for his love of ceramics and would rather find him in a ceramics studio than at a royal event, so perhaps it is no surprise that Princess Margaret’s grandson fell in love with a fellow artist, whom he brought with him to Sandringham this year.
Samuel Chatto, 28, has been dating his Edinburgh teammates since 2021. College graduate Eleanor Ekserdjian, accomplished painter.
And with their joint appearance at Norfolk’s majestic festivities on Christmas Day this year, the happy couple will surely have sparked engagement rumours.
King Charles appears to have followed the lead of his late mother, Queen Elizabeth, who allowed Meghan Markle to join the festive gathering in 2017, five months before she exchanged vows with Prince Harry at St. George’s Chapel. in Windsor.
Meghan was the first person allowed to spend Christmas at Sandringham before marrying into the Royal Family.
Kate Middleton, for example, had to wait until she became Duchess of Cambridge and Sophie Rhys-Jones did not stay until she married Prince Edward and received the title Countess of Wessex.
Samuel and Eleanor, also 28, are passionate about their creative projects.
The grandson of Lord Snowdon, Margaret’s ex-husband, completed an apprenticeship in Japan with professional potter Yagi Akira last year.
Samuel Chatto, 28, has been dating since 2021 with fellow Edinburgh University graduate Eleanor Ekserdjian, who is an accomplished painter. Both in 2022
And with their joint appearance at Norfolk’s majestic festivities on Christmas Day this year, the happy couple will surely have sparked engagement rumours.
In 2021, Richard Eden revealed that Sam had started dating Eleanor and had also become his muse. A sketch of Sam by Eleanor
And his partner is equally passionate about his work, with his work held in several private collections, including London’s Redfern Gallery.
He has also held residencies at Hauser & Wirth Residency in Braemar and Sokyo Gallery in Kyoto, Japan.
According to her website, Eleanor is “an abstract painter and film artist” whose practice “involves projecting the moving image onto paper or canvas and drawing from and on it, making her physical and emotional responses visible through the rapid creation of brands”.
Her most recent project explored “cultural memory through landscape” and was created while she was on a six-week artist residency in Armenia.
And it seems other famous faces from The Firm are fans. Just this summer, Sarah Ferguson, the mother of Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice, dedicated herself to instagram to praise the couple.
“I believe in supporting young artists and really encouraging them to showcase the talent they have to as large an audience as possible,” he wrote.
Richard Eden revealed in 2021 that Sam, 28, had started dating Eleanor, who is an artist and also 28.
Princess Margaret’s first grandson, Sam Chatto, pictured in his ceramics studio, turned 28 this summer.
Lady Sarah Chatto and Daniel Chatto photographed with their sons Arthur and Sam at Goodwood House in 2015
‘My friend Samuel Chatto’s sculptures and artworks by Eleanor Ekserdjian and Nouneh Sarkissian are currently on display at The Redfern Gallery, and I urge you to go and take a close look at the skill and craftsmanship that goes into creating such art. marvelous. .’
In 2021, Richard Eden revealed that Sam had started dating Eleanor, and he had also become her muse.
Eleanor told the editor of the Daily Mail newspaper at the time: “We’re a couple.”
Inspired by her new love, the art teacher’s daughter began representing Sam in her work.
An Eton-educated ceramist, Sam comes from an artistic family: his mother, the King’s cousin Lady Sarah Armstrong-Jones, often submits her artworks for the Royal Academy’s summer exhibition, and his father is the actor turned artist Daniel Chatto.
Sam, who was left heartbroken when he broke up with his first serious girlfriend during the Covid lockdowns, was invited to Buckingham Palace earlier this year for the State Banquet honoring the Emperor and Empress of Japan.
Some of Sam’s porcelains were part of an exhibition in Somerset, mounted by Hauser & Wirth, whose gallery his cousin, Princess Eugenie, is associate director of.
Princess Margaret’s first grandchild was born on July 28, 1996, at Portland Hospital, where Sarah Ferguson gave birth to Princess Beatrice and Eugenie, in London.
He weighed 7lb 12oz and was the Queen Mother’s seventh great-grandchild.
His grandfather, Lord Snowdon, Princess Margaret’s ex-husband, said at the time: “Everyone is absolutely thrilled. He is a splendid baby and very warm-hearted.
‘Sarah is very well but very tired. I have spoken to Princess Margaret and she will be going to see Sarah very soon.
Sam, the eldest son of Lady Sarah Chatto and actor-turned-entertainer Daniel Chatto, grew up mostly away from the royal spotlight in Kensington, London.
As her grandmother once said about her mother and uncle: “My children are not royal, they just have the Queen for an aunt.”
His parents married 30 years ago, but not all the attention was focused on the happy couple when they tied the knot at the picturesque St Stephen Walbrook Church in London on July 14, 1994.
Because just two weeks earlier, Prince Charles had confessed to adultery on national television; That same night, Princess Diana wowed in the outfit that became known as the “revenge dress.”
Diana and Charles, who had formally separated two years earlier, arrived 45 seconds apart and did not speak to each other during the ceremony.
Lady Sarah and Daniel met in the film Heat and Dust in India in 1982 and, fittingly, also spent their honeymoon in India.
Like many of his royal relatives, including his younger brother Arthur and Princes William and Harry, Sam was sent to Eton College when he was 11.
Sam, whose mother is a professional artist, studied Art History at the University of Edinburgh.
After a three-month stint in commercial art marketing, he channeled his creativity into ceramics.
He has a studio in West Sussex and his work has been featured in several exhibitions.
Sam is also a qualified yoga instructor – he trained for six weeks in India with his then-girlfriend Sophie Pipe, who also studied at the University of Edinburgh.
Speaking to the Daily Mail in 2019, she said: ‘I am working in clay to create functional and sculptural wood-fired ceramics from my home and studio in West Sussex.
‘I have always had a strong affinity with creating objects, having spent much of my childhood creating imagined landscapes and sculptural models, which naturally led me to clay during my later years at school.
‘My creative practice took a back seat while I studied Art History in Edinburgh, but was revived, in the summer of 2017, with a visit to North Shore Pottery (in Caithness).
‘Inspired by what I had seen in Scotland, and completely oblivious to my three-month job in the commercial art market, I spent weekends setting up a small home studio to rediscover my creativity and built a wood-burning oven in the back from my garden.
“The decision to start selling my work comes from a strong belief in the power of beautiful, well-made objects to enrich and improve our lives.”
Sam grew up mostly away from the royal spotlight in Kensington, London. As her grandmother once said about her mother and uncle: “My children are not royal, they just have the Queen for an aunt.”
However, his latest appearance with Eleanor at Sandringham seems to have put the couple on everyone’s minds.
“This is a clear sign that there will be a royal wedding in the new year,” said one excited Windsor watcher on Christmas Day.
After the late queen broke tradition for Meghan, Princess Beatrice’s then-fiancé, Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi, was allowed to stay at Sandringham for Christmas 2019. The couple married the following year.