Princess Margaret’s Grandson Samuel Chatto Proposes to Longtime Love Eleanor Ekserdjian

Eleanor also joined Sam at the Mey Highland Games in Caithness, Scotland, in August last year, alongside his mother and her cousin King Charles.

In 2021, Eleanor confirmed her relationship with Sam to the Diary Editor of the Daily Mail, Richard Eden, simply stating, ‘We are a couple.’

Inspired by her new love, the arts professor’s daughter had started depicting Sam in her work.

Sam and Eleanor posed for photos together at The Alchemist’s Feast, the inaugural summer party and fundraiser for the National Gallery’s Bicentenary campaign in 2022.

After Christmas 2024, Sam and Eleanor were seen together again in February 2025 at London Fashion Week.

Sam showed support for his girlfriend, whose creative mind brought to life the Banshee of Savile Row runway show.

During the show, she decorated a coat with brushstrokes live on the runway.

Sam later took to Instagram to gush and pay tribute to his artistic girlfriend, posting a video of her in action at the show.

Both Eleanor, a painter and film artist, and Sam, a ceramicist, are graduates of the University of Edinburgh and studied at the Royal Drawing School in London.

Eleanor revealed to Eden that Sam had become her artistic muse, and included a sketch of him, entitled ‘SAM’, in a small collection of her works – once displayed at an exhibition at London’s Gallery at Green & Stone.

The pair are both passionate about their creative ventures. Sam completed an apprenticeship in Japan under professional potter Yagi Akira just last year.

His partner is just as ardent about her work. She has had her pieces held in several private collections, including the Redfern Gallery in London.

Eleanor’s parents are also in the field, with her father being renowned art historian Professor David Ekserdjian, who is married to Financial Times art critic Susan Moore.

David is Professor of History of Art and Film at the University of Leicester, focusing particularly on the art of the Italian Renaissance.

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’.

Eton-educated ceramicist Sam comes from an artistic family himself: his mother, the King’s cousin Lady Sarah Chatto (nee Armstrong-Jones) often submits her artworks for the Royal Academy’s summer exhibition, while his father is the actor-turned-artist Daniel Chatto. His grandfather was renowned photographer Lord Snowdon.

Sam is also a qualified yoga instructor having trained for six weeks in India with then-girlfriend Sophie Pipe, who also studied at Edinburgh University.

Speaking to the Daily Mail in 2019, he said: ‘I’m working in clay to create functional and sculptural wood-fired ceramics from my home and studio in West Sussex.

‘I’ve always had a strong affinity with creating objects, having spent much of my childhood crafting imagined landscapes and sculptural models, which naturally led me to clay during my later years at school.