THE only known painting for which the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh sat together has been bought by a British art dealer for the knock-down price of £3,400 — a fraction of its estimated £100,000 value.
The 1997 portrait by Tai-Shan Schierenberg was largely unnoticed among 435 items put up for sale at a small New Jersey auction house by Reader’s Digest, the US magazine publisher.
The auctioneers had valued it at between $800 (£520) and $1,200. The artist’s London dealer, Matthew Flowers, spotted the portrait in the auction while looking for the work of another artist: “I looked through online . . . and spotted the Schierenberg. I decided to bid as the asking price was ridiculously low.”
Schierenberg, who was paid £25,000