The engagement has been announced between Samuel David Benedict Chatto (born 28 July, 1996), elder son of Daniel St George Chatto (nee Sproule) (born 22 April, 1957), and his wife the former Lady Sarah Frances Elizabeth Armstrong-Jones (born 1 May, 1964), & Eleanor Armine Moore Eskerdjian (born in London, 22 August, 1996), daughter of Professor David Patrick Martin Ekserdjian (born 28 Oct, 1955), who has been married since 1990 to Financial Times Art critic Susan Pauline Moore, daughter of D.B. Moore, of Bracknell, Berkshire.
Sam Chatto shared the news on Instagram, writing: “I’m really delighted to say that Ellie and I are engaged. And we couldn’t be happier. “I proposed with a porcelain ring which I made.”
Eleanor Ekserdjian, who is known as Ellie, is a painter and film artist. The pair live together in London.
The couple plan to marry in the Spring of 2027.
Sam Chatto is the eldest of the four grandchildren of the late Princess Margaret Rose, Countess of Snowdon (1930-2002), and of the 1st Earl of Snowdon, GCVO (1930-2017), and he is a cousin once removed of HM The King.
Since 2021, Samuel Chatto, 29, has been seeing fellow Edinburgh University graduate London-born Eleanor Ekserdjian, who is an accomplished painter and is not known to have any aristocratic or royal connections.
Samuel and Eleanor, also 29, are both passionate about their creative ventures. The eldest son of Lady Sarah Chatto, Princess Margaret's only daughter, he completed an apprenticeship in Japan under professional potter Yagi Akira just last year. Eleanor was born in London, on 22 August, 1996.
Eleanor is just as ardent about her work, having her pieces held in several private collections including the Redfern Gallery in London. Her parents are also in the field, with her father being a renowned art historian.
Prof David Ekserdjian is Professor of History of Art and Film at the University of Leicester, focusing particularly on the art of the Italian Renaissance. He was born in the week that Princess Margaret announced her intention not to marry Group Capt Peter Townsend.
He is a Trustee of Art UK as well as the Sir John Soane's Museum. The academic was also once a Trustee of the National Gallery and of Tate.
Eleanor herself 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.
A lot of her work is focused around the West Asian country's diaspora, especially works from last year. Eleanor has a brother, Alexander, also born in Westminster, in 1993.
Alexander Ekserdjian is a historian of ancient Mediterranean art with a specialisation in the sculpture of Hellenistic Central Italy. His research focuses on ancient responses to visual art, particularly the role played by sculpted images of the gods in religious experience. He is interested in the theology and anthropology of sacred sculpture, and the ways material culture can contribute to the study of Roman religion. Projects in progress include a monograph centred on the representation of the gods in Central Italy in the early period of Roman overseas expansion (3rd-1st centuries BCE), an article on lists of art objects inscribed in stone within Greek sanctuaries, and a study on the modern reception of ancient votive body parts, as well as chapters on experimentation in Central Italian pedimental sculpture and on the ‘limits’ of Etruscan art.
Before joining Yale (where he is appointed in Classics as well as History of Art), Ekserdjian read Classical Archaeology and Ancient History at St John’s College, Oxford and earned a Ph.D. in Art History and Archaeology from Columbia University. His research has been supported by fellowships at Columbia and the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. He has also participated in archaeological excavations in Italy and the UK, most recently as a member of the Advanced Program in Ancient History and Art (APAHA) team at Hadrian’s Villa, Tivoli.
Eleanor is a niece of the late barrister Angus Ekserdjian (1948-1989), and a granddaughter of Colonel Nubar Martin Ekserdjian, TA, TD (1913-1967), economist, of Knapwood House, Knaphill, Surrey, of Armenian ancestry, and his wife the former Mabel Brown Angus (1917-2003), daughter of George Angus, steel maker, of Motherwell, Lanarkshire, Scotland.
Colonel Ekserdjian had a distinguished army career. The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, 20 July 1942, took pleasure in presenting the Legion of Merit, in the Degree of Officer to Colonel Nubar Martin Ekserdiian, British Army, for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services to the Government of the United States from July 1943 to November 1944.
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