Andrew Lloyd Webber presides over one of the nation’s pre-eminent private art collections. But even he has been unable to lay his hands on a series of royal portraits sketched by Stephen Ward, the society fixer at the heart of the Profumo affair and subject of the peer’s latest West End musical, which begins previewing at the Aldwych tomorrow.
“Why did somebody buy all of Ward’s pictures of the royal family before his trial and pay cash?” Lord Lloyd-Webber asks. “They’ve never been seen since, and it all seems a bit odd.”
A keen amateur portrait artist, Ward met many of his subjects through his work as a high-society osteopath. Members of the royal family, including Prince Philip and the Duke and Duchess of Kent, sat for him, as well as Christine Keeler, the showgirl at the centre of the scandal.
Lawyers acting for Ward, who committed suicide in 1963 while on trial for living off immoral earnings, considered the portraits sensitive and gave orders for them to be removed from public view.
“I’ve asked my connections in the art world,” says the composer, whose musical presents Ward as a sacrificial victim of the Establishment. “I know the drawing of Prince Philip is very good. I wish I had it.”
It is believed the Ward portraits, once destined for an exhibition at the now-defunct Museum Street Galleries in the West End, fell into the hands of a collector, George Olaf Spanswick, and remain with his family.
However, in 2011 Christie’s sold a charcoal, pastel and watercolour portrait of Prince Philip, signed, inscribed and dated “Stephen Ward at Buckingham Palace 9 June 61,” with a reserve price of £2,500-£3,500. The Palace confirmed its authenticity.
