Name: King Charles’s goat.
Age: 55.
Appearance: Small, ceramic.
Why does this sound like a bad children’s story? Relax, it’s nothing like that. Charles literally had a goat.
A small, ceramic goat? Yes. Imagine the sort of small, ceramic goat that you might hastily buy for someone on the last day of your holiday at an airport gift shop in a warm southern European country. That is the sort of small, ceramic goat we are talking about.
Why did someone give the king a small, ceramic goat? Oh, nobody gave it to him. He made it.
OK, new question: why? Because he was a student in the 1960s and apparently that was all the rage at the time.
Right, so it was a project. Someone gave him some clay at school and he made a goat with it. Not that, either. Charles made the goat at the University of Cambridge. But, look, don’t get hung up on this. The important thing is that the goat just sold at auction for more than £11,000.
Yikes! The goat must be amazing to sell for that much. No, it’s a bit rubbish. But it is the only piece of pottery known to have been made by the king (plus, you know, he’s the king), so that jacked up its price a bit.
Some people are mugs. Actually, there’s quite a sweet story behind it. The goat belonged to a retired carpenter who had been given it by his aunt. She worked at Cambridge, as a cook for the president of Queens’ College.
So? Isn’t that sweet? Perhaps young Charles latched on to this woman as a substitute maternal figure at university. Perhaps she could provide the support and affection that his own mother could not. Perhaps the only way that this shy, lost boy could offer his undying gratitude was to give her a small, handmade trinket. Isn’t that lovely?
Yeah, or she nicked it. I am legally required to state that there is no suggestion the goat was stolen.
So Charles is an artist. Who knew? Well, everyone. He’s well known as a painter. He even made a documentary about his love of painting, Royal Paintbox, a decade ago. Plus, two of his pictures sold for almost £60,000 last year.
Paintings? No. They were pictures of his parents that he drew as a child. Again, they’re not the most accurate. Queen Elizabeth II has yellow hair, hulking great forearms and a tiny waist, while Prince Philip isn’t visibly offending anybody. But, hey, £60,000. Don’t knock it.
Do say: “There is great money to be had in the artworks of your youth.”
Don’t say: “But only if you were born into an archaic system of hereditary rule.”
