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Prince Charles faces an art scandal
Over $130 million worth of art hung on the walls of Prince Charles’ Scottish stately home may be fake.
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The works allegedly include a fake “Monet,” “Picasso” and “Dali” which were hung at Dumfries House in Scotland after being lent to Charles by a bankrupt British businessman, James Stunt.
In a piece in the Mail on Sunday, reporters Mark Hollingsworth and Sarah Oliver painstakingly detail how Stunt commissioned the pieces from the celebrity American forger Tony Tetro, who was once jailed for forgery but now specializes in producing acknowledged fakes and whose tricks include aging his materials with coffee and vinegar.
Tetro says that he created the works for Stunt, which he now believes were lent to Dumfries House, the headquarters of The Prince’s Foundation. He spoke to the Mail in what appears to be an attempt to distance himself from what he believes is an attempt to pass off his work as genuine.
A Prince’s Foundation spokesman last night told the Mail on Sunday: “Dumfries House accepts artwork on loan from time to time from individuals and organizations. It is extremely regrettable that the authenticity of these particular paintings, which are no longer on display, now appears to be in doubt.”
Stunt has denied the allegations telling the Mail: “None of my stuff is fake,” adding, “None of these pictures have come back, they are all there. No Monet has come back to me because it is not real.”
He also claimed that the “Monet”, entitled Lily Pads 1882, was authenticated by the prestigious Wildenstein Institute in Paris, a globally acknowledged authority on Monet.
However, Tetro told the Mail on Sunday: “I don’t want any part of this. It has got to be stopped now rather than later. I’m told these pictures went to Dumfries House. There is no question about it: James knew they were mine.”
The paintings are allegedly among 17 of Stunt’s pictures given on a ten-year, free lease to Dumfries House.
Stunt, who was made bankrupt with debts of up to $18 million in June this year, is famous for his conspicuous lifestyle and fleet of 200 supercars. In 2011, he and his ex-wife Petra Ecclestone bought a 123-room mansion in Los Angeles, said to be the city's largest private home.
Tetro says he met Stunt after he appeared as an expert on a British TV show, Fake or Fortune, and painted the pictures in question at his kitchen table using simple techniques to make his materials look old including splashing his canvases with black coffee and dipping copper tacks in vinegar to make them look antique.
Tetro claims three of his pieces hung in Dumfries House, including the fake water lilies Monet.
“I was very proud of that,” Tetro tells the Mail: “It was a good Monet.”
Crowning glory
The new series of The Crown hits Netflix in two weeks time, and, given the travails that Prince Harry has endured in recent months, there is particular interest in the portrayal of Princess Margaret, whose position as a “spare” to the Queen can be seen analogous to Harry’s relationship to William.
Margaret is being played by Helena Bonham Carter, taking over from Vanessa Kirby; Olivia Colman is taking over from Claire Foy as the queen.
The new series covers the years 1964 to 1976, a period when Margaret’s scandalous lifestyle dominated the royal narrative.
By coincidence, Bonham Carter’s uncle dated Margaret during the Second World War, as she revealed in The Sunday Times. “It developed into a long-standing friendship. She was often at the house and at parties, and eventually I met her when I was invited to Windsor. It was in my early thirties... She said, “You are getting better at acting,” and I just thought, well, that’s hilarious. Now it’s in her interest that I get better,” she said.
Bonham Carter added: “She was very far away. There was a huge remoteness about her, which might have been her depression, it might have been her drinking. She was removed.”
Bonham Carter “spoke” with Margaret again while seeing a psychic as she prepared to play the princess. Spirit Margaret told her that while her appearance left something to be desired, she was preferable to the other actress being considered for the role.
Bonham Carter says this is “classic” Margaret because: “There’s an ambivalence about Margaret. She’d compliment you and put you down at the same time.”
Bonham Carter says Margaret resented having very little “authority” and being told what to do by “civil servants.”
Bonham Carter said, “The thing with Margaret is she was somebody who I don’t think found it that easy to be alive, although she had a lot of fun. She was difficult. She was somebody who had a very low boredom threshold, someone with a very active mind—and I think that’s why she would medicate with drink. A lot of royal life is incredibly boring.”
Royal fashion watch
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry have had a very smiley week, seemingly aimed at expunging the impression they gave in that explosive ITV documentary that they hate their jobs, hate being royal, and hate the media most of all.
Prince Harry visited the World Cup-winning South African rugby team in their dressing room, and Meghan paid a visit to London social enterprise bakery, the Luminary Bakery. For her visit she wore a practical white and blue stripe button down from With Nothing Underneath.
The Sussex Royal Instagram posted of the visit: “It was a special moment to acknowledge the spirit of Luminary and their remarkable business model that opens its arms to women from vulnerable circumstances (be it abuse, poverty, trafficking, marginalization) and equips them with the job skills and confidence to succeed.”
This week in royal history
On November 3, 1961, Princess Margaret gave birth to her son, David Armstrong-Jones, Viscount Linley, at Clarence House.
This year, he will likely be preparing for season three of The Crown (premiering on Netflix on November 17), in which Helena Bonham Carter (see above) will be taking on the role of his mother. The season will cover his mother’s scandalous affair with landscape gardener Roddy Llewellyn.
When photographs of them together on Mustique were published in the News of the World in 1976, it led to Margaret’s divorce from Viscount Linley’s father, Lord Snowdon.
Excuse the sour grapes, but…
In an emotional letter written in support of his wife’s legal action against the Mail on Sunday, Prince Harry sought to deflect allegations that he was seeking to muzzle the press by beginning it with the words; “As a couple, we believe in media freedom and objective, truthful reporting. We regard it as a cornerstone of democracy and in the current state of the world—on every level—we have never needed responsible media more.”
If this is so then why, may one ask, do they appear to only consent to interviews with tame journalists such as Bryony Gordon and Tom Bradby?
Gordon’s beyond-soft “interview” with Meghan showed what Meghan and Harry actually need is people to challenge them in an honest and fair way. Of course, one quite understands why Gordon and Bradby are unwilling to do so; it seems that anything that might be interpreted as “negativity” results in you being cut off.
Unanswered questions
It’s prepare to smile and be civil time for the young royals, as William and Kate, and Harry and Meghan, prepare to come face to face at next weekend’s Remembrance Day commemoration at London’s Cenotaph.
It will be the first time they have met—indeed all the boldface royals have been together—since Harry spoke of the rift with his brother, and both he and Meghan signaled in the ITV documentary how down on royal life generally they were. Will the solemnity and importance of the service will be enough encouragement for everyone to play (publicly) nice?
