Edward Prince of Wales, Later King Edward VIII and the Duke of Windsor, 1894–1972, by John Archibald Alexander [A. A.] Berrie (1887–1962), 30in by 25in, Collection: Tim Gosling
Tim Gosling says: I instantly fell in love with this portrait. There’s nothing like it in the National Portrait Gallery, although there is a very famous one of Wallis Simpson. When I die, I’ll bequeath it to the gallery in the hope it will hang alongside her. I purchased a postcard of it from eBay, so I presume it was a well-known commission. I bought the painting from a dealer on the Selling Antiques website. It had been stored in a Devon barn and was covered in bird droppings, so I had to send it off for restoration. My parents were bemused as to why I had pursued it. I think it’s only younger generations that accept the abdication and divorce without judgement and see them as a rather fascinating episode in history, rather than a scandal.
Tim Gosling is a furniture and interior designer.
John McEwen comments on Edward Prince of Wales, Later King Edward VIII and the Duke of Windsor: John A. A. Berrie studied at Liverpool’s Bootle Art School in Paris and at the portraitist Hubert von Herkomer’s school in Bushey, Hertfordshire. He was best known as a sporting artist and portraitist, his subjects including Churchill, George V and, in the National Portrait Gallery, the champion jockey Steve Donoghue. He worked in London, Liverpool—where he is well represented in the Walker Art Gallery’s collection—and Harrogate before emigrating to South Africa.
This undated portrait seems to have been painted when the ill-fated Prince was about 30, seven years before he met his nemesis, the American divorcée Mrs Wallis Simpson. History has so derided Edward VIII for putting his love of a woman above his sacred duty as king, it’s worth remembering that the dismay this caused was deepened by his tremendous popularity—with his staff as much as the public worldwide. ‘He won me completely,’ wrote Alan Lascelles on becoming his assistant private secretary in 1920. ‘He is the most attractive man I’ve ever met.’
The Prince’s boyish looks matched his character. He was the darling of the crowds for his appearance and charm, yet, as the Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin said, he remained half a child, volatile, petulant, selfish and subject to self-doubt as well as black depressions. ‘If only the British public really knew what a weak, powerless misery their press-made national hero was,’ the Prince wrote to Mrs William (Freda) Dudley Ward, his mistress for 16 years before Mrs Simpson arrived and forced him to choose between the two.
My favourite painting: Nicole Farhi
Happiness, in all art, is harder to catch than unhappiness.'
My favourite painting: Emma Bridgewater
'For me, it’s like a prayer. Or a meditation,' says Emma Bridgewater of her favourite painting.
-
'The whole house shook. Everything was white. For four months, it felt as if we were on Mars': The story behind one of Hampshire's most breathtaking gardensWhen Kim Wilkie sculpted a tiered grass amphitheatre behind this 17th-century house, the garden finally settled into place, as Non Morris discovers.
-
'I have lost a treasure, such a sister, such a friend as never can have been surpassed': Inside Jane Austen's Winchester home, the house where she penned her final words and drew her final breathJane Austen spent the last days of her life in rented lodgings in Winchester, Hampshire. Adam Rattray describes the remarkable recent discoveries made about the house in which she died.
-
'As a child I wanted to snuggle up with the dogs and be part of it': Alexia Robinson chooses her favourite paintingAlexia Robinson, founder of Love British Food, chooses an Edwin Landseer classic.
-
The Pre-Raphaelite painter who swapped 'willowy, nubile women' for stained glass — and created some of the best examples in BritainThe painter Edward Burne-Jones turned from paint to glass for much of his career. James Hughes, director of the Victorian Society, chooses a glass masterpiece by Burne-Jones as his favourite 'painting'.
-
'I can’t look away. I’m captivated': The painter who takes years over each portrait, with the only guarantee being that it won't look like the subjectFor Country Life's My Favourite Painting slot, the writer Emily Howes chooses a work by a daring and challenging artist: Frank Auerbach.
-
My Favourite Painting: Rob HouchenThe actor Rob Houchen chooses a bold and challenging Egon Schiele work.
-
My Favourite Painting: Jeremy Clarkson'That's why this is my favourite painting. Because it invites you to imagine'
-
The chair of the National Gallery names his favourite from among the 2,300 masterpieces — and it will come as a bit of a shockAs the National Gallery turns 200, the chair of its board of trustees, John Booth, chooses his favourite painting.
-
'A wonderful reminder of what the countryside could and should be': The 200-year-old watercolour of a world fast disappearingChristopher Price of the Rare Breed Survival Trust on the bucolic beauty of The Magic Apple Tree by Samuel Palmer, which he nominates as his favourite painting.
-
My favourite painting: Andrew Graham-Dixon'Lesson Number One: it’s the pictures that baffle and tantalise you that stay in the mind forever .'
