STUDIES OF HIS SOLDIER BOYS

These are sketches for the first official double oil portrait of princes William and Harry, now hanging in London’s National Portrait Gallery. It shows them both as serving officers wearing the regimental dress uniform of the Household Cavalry – the ‘Blues and Royals’ – the uniform that Harry recently wore at his wedding to Meghan

Markle. The artist Nicky Philipps has captured the brothers’ close, easy-going friendship. Down the side of the canvases she has scribbled memos to herself: Harry’s eyes are ultramarine and raw sienna, paler than his brother’s, and William’s hair is painted in raw umber and ochre with dashes of white. This is the first time the 2009 sketches have gone on public display, as normally they are on private view only at Highgrove, Prince Charles’s Gloucestershire home.

‘Prince Charles feels strongly that observational drawing skills should be the foundation for art, which is why he set up the Royal Drawing School, based in London, in 2000,’ explains Vanessa Remington. Perhaps, had he been born a commoner, the prince might have been an art student himself. He took up painting watercolours while he was a pupil at Gordonstoun and limitededition prints of his paintings – he has never sold an original – sell for £2,500 at his Highgrove shop, and are thought to have raised £6m for his charities. His love of art continues to run in the royal genes. Prince William studied art history before switching to geography.