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RICHARD EDEN: Why Princess Margaret's grandson Sam Chatto, 27, was the only young royal invited to the State Banquet at Buckingham Palace
The Royal Family looks more stick-thin than slimmed down this week, following the equestrian accident which has confined Princess Anne to hospital.
But never underestimate 'The Firm'. I can disclose that it managed to rustle up a very fitting newcomer for Tuesday night's State Banquet, held in the ballroom at Buckingham Palace in honour of Emperor Naruhito and Emperess Masako of Japan.
Though both Anne and the Princess of Wales were inevitably absent, a 27-year-old ceramicist was among the 170 guests who joined the King and Queen – not any run-of-the-mill ceramicist but one who only last year served an apprenticeship with 'porcelain master' Yagi Akira in Japan and who, in addition, is also a great-nephew of the late Queen Elizabeth.
I refer, of course, to Sam Chatto, the elder of the two sons Princess Margaret's daughter, Lady Sarah Armstrong-Jones, had following her marriage to actor-turned-artist Daniel Chatto.
Special guest: Sam Chatto, the elder of the two sons Princess Margaret's daughter, Lady Sarah Armstrong-Jones , had following her marriage to actor-turned-artist Daniel Chatto
Sam pictured with his parents Daniel and Lady Sarah Chatto (right)
Whereas his younger brother, Arthur, 25, who's blessed with the family's brawn, is an officer in the Royal Marines, Sam has inherited artistic DNA from his father and his mother, who trained at Camberwell School of Art and regularly exhibits at the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition.
Sam's talents arguably more closely resemble those of his uncle David, now Lord Snowdon.
After graduating from Edinburgh in History of Art, Sam spent three months in the commercial art market – an experience which, he said, left him 'completely uninspired', prompting him to build a wood-fired kiln in his garden in Sussex and try his hand as a potter.
It's proved to be his vocation and led to last year's apprenticeship in Japan where he learned strictly traditional Japanese techniques which were often completely opposite to those he'd previously mastered at home.
Some of his porcelain forms part of a current exhibition in Somerset, mounted by Hauser & Wirth, the Swiss art gallery of which Sam's second cousin, Princess Eugenie, is an associate director.
Sam regards the tea set as 'the perfect combination of form and function', so I hope he coped on Tuesday night.
There was no tea – only Scottish langoustines, Cornish turbot and Bombe Glacé Melba, all eased down with English sparkling wine from Coates and Seely in Hampshire, a New Zealand chardonnay, and, from France, a claret and a splash of Laurent Perrier champagne.