He’s known for his love of pottery and would much sooner be found in a ceramics studio than a royal event – so it’s perhaps no wonder that Princess Margaret’s grandson fell in love with a fellow artist, who he brought with him to Sandringham this year.
Samuel Chatto, 28, has since 2021 been seeing fellow Edinburgh University graduate Eleanor Ekserdjian, who is an accomplished painter.
And with their joint appearance at the regal Norfolk festivities on Christmas Day this year, the happy couple are sure to have sparked engagement rumours.
King Charles appears to have followed the example of his late mother, Queen Elizabeth, who permitted Meghan Markle to join the festive gathering in 2017, five months before she exchanged vows with Prince Harry at St George’s Chapel, Windsor.
Meghan was the first person to be allowed to spend Christmas at Sandringham before marrying into the Royal Family.
Kate Middleton, for instance, had to wait until after she became the Duchess of Cambridge and Sophie Rhys-Jones did not stay before she married Prince Edward and received the Countess of Wessex title.
Samuel and Eleanor, also 28, are both passionate about their creative ventures.
The grandchild of Lord Snowdon, Margaret’s former husband, completed an apprenticeship in Japan under professional potter Yagi Akira just last year.
Samuel Chatto, 28, has since 2021 been seeing fellow Edinburgh University graduate Eleanor Ekserdjian, who is an accomplished painter. Both in 2022
And with their joint appearance at the regal Norfolk festivities on Christmas Day this year, the happy couple are sure to have sparked engagement rumours
In 2021 Richard Eden revealed that Sam had started going out with Eleanor – and he had also become her muse. A sketch of Sam by Eleanor
And his partner is just as ardent about her work, having her work held in several private collections including the Redfern Gallery in London.
She has also completed residencies at the Hauser & Wirth Residency in Braemar and the 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 over it, her physical and emotional responses being made visible through rapid mark-making’.
Her most recent project explored ‘cultural memory through landscape’ and was created while she was at a six-week artist residency in Armenia.
And it would seem other famous faces in The Firm are fans. Just this summer Sarah Ferguson – the mother of Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice – took to Instagram to praise the pair.
‘I believe in supporting young artists and really pushing them to show off the talent that they have to as big an audience as they can,’ she penned.
Richard Eden disclosed in 2021 that Sam, 28, had started going out with Eleanor, who’s an artist and also 28
Princess Margaret’s first grandchild Sam Chatto, pictured in his ceramics studio, turned 28 this summer
Lady Sarah Chatto and Daniel Chatto pictured with sons Arthur and Sam at Goodwood House in 2015
‘My friend Samuel Chatto’s sculptures and the artwork of both Eleanor Ekserdjian and Nouneh Sarkissian are currently showing at The Redfern Gallery, and I’d urge you to go and have a look up close at the skill and craftsmanship that goes into creating such wonderful art.’
In 2021 Richard Eden revealed that Sam had started going out with Eleanor – and he had also become her muse.
Eleanor told the Diary Editor of the Daily Mail at the time: ‘We are a couple.’
Inspired by her new love, the arts professor’s daughter had started depicting Sam in her work.
Eton-educated ceramicist Sam comes from an arty family himself: 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 split up with his first serious girlfriend during the Covid lockdowns, was invited to Buckingham Palace earlier this year for the State Banquet in honour of the emperor and empress of Japan.
Some of Sam’s porcelain formed part of an exhibition in Somerset, mounted by Hauser & Wirth, the gallery of which his cousin, Princess Eugenie, is associate director.
Sam grew up mostly away from the royal spotlight in Kensington, London. As his grandmother once said about his mother and uncle: ‘My children aren’t royal, they just happen to have the Queen as an aunt.’
However, his latest appearance with Eleanor at Sandringham appears 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,’ an excited observer of the Windsors said on Christmas Day.
After the late Queen broke tradition for Meghan, Princess Beatrice’s then fiance, Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi, was allowed to stay at Sandringham at Christmas 2019. The couple were married the following year.
