Picture This: More Wealthy Americans Are Tapping the U.K.’s Royal Painters for Personal Portrait
In an era of snapping quick selfies, Britain’s Royal Society of Portrait Painters has seen a 40% increase in the number of U.S. clients.
4 min
An avatar, Instagram selfie or AI clone is enough for some people.
But a growing number of Americans are going old school and having their portraits painted—and many are turning to Britain’s Royal Society of Portrait Painters to create those very analog images.
Founded in 1891, the society―whose members paint all portraits of the royal family―reported a 40% increase in portrait commissions from the U.S. in 2024. Americans now make up 20% of its clients.
“They love the connection to the royal family, and they’re excited about the idea of a trip to the U.K. for sittings,” said Martina Merelli, fine art commissions manager at London’s Mall Galleries.
Mall Galleries is the home of visual arts charity the Federation of British Artists, whose nine art societies include the Royal Society of Portrait Painters.
Merelli heads a portrait commission service that matches clients with artists, and guides them from sittings to completion. Private-commission clients range across age groups and location, though many are Americans based in London.
“Clients tell us, ‘When you have everything, what is it you’re missing?’,” she said. “It’s not vanity, which some people think it is. It’s a love thing. Some clients have multimillion-dollar homes full of art, but none of it means as much as a portrait commission of themselves, a spouse or their children.”
The Royal Society of Portrait Painters includes 46 painters chosen through “a tough selection process,” Merelli said. “We want to preserve the quality the society stands for.” Most members are British.
For Will Cappelletti, a 41-year-old Washington, D.C., entrepreneur, commissioning a portrait was “a bucket-list thing”―though he was skeptical of the idea at first.
“An ex had talked about having it done a few years ago, and I thought it was ridiculous and vain,” he said. “Why would you want to do that?”
But over time, Cappelletti “began to see something else. It’s not about being absorbed with yourself. It’s more about the fact that we live in a world with hundreds of thousands of images of ourselves getting created. They’re impermanent,” he said. “The nice thing about a portrait is that it’s meant to capture you.”
Partly inspired by “classic portraits in public spaces like the Ralph Lauren store on the Upper East Side” of New York, Cappelletti reached out to the portrait society about a commission.
“There is definitely a cultural component to why I chose to get the portrait done in the U.K.,” said Cappelletti, whose personal art collection spans American Impressionism, Greek and Roman antiquities, prints and books.
“The word ‘Royal’ in the title has a punch. I didn’t see a parallel organization in the United States. And most importantly, this commission service exists, with a portrait consultant who gets to know you and your preferences, and has an encyclopedic knowledge of the artists. That sealed it,” he said.
While the society usually recommends an artist based on a client’s input, Cappelletti had one in mind. He had seen a news report on Northumberland artist Frances Bell, who had once painted actor Derek Jacobi.
“I tacked on some personal days to a business trip in Europe, took the train to Northumberland, and was a guest of Frances, her husband and her two kids. She made a shepherd’s pie for dinner the first night and the sittings started the next day.”
Close collaboration with subjects “is extremely important,” said Bell, the artist, from her Northumberland home studio. “The view of themselves, or how people close to them see them, is really important. And when I consult them, they don’t say, ‘Can I be thinner? Can you give me better skin?’ It’s, ‘Please use more of that expression.’”
American clients “love the experience, love the sittings and love the interaction,” she said. “A lot of them are Anglophiles. They like hearing about our slightly different worlds. And I wouldn’t be surprised if Downton Abbey was an influence.
“We are the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, with the king as our patron, and the queen before him. I’m also based in Northumberland, which people love to visit. There’s a whole sense of adventure and oddness about it.”
While Cappelletti estimates he spent about $10,000 dollars on his wood-framed portrait―which now resides in his parents’ home in Ohio―commissions can average from £3,000 to £60,000 (US$3,810 to US$76,200), said Merelli of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters.
“The variables include the size, background, head-and-shoulders versus full length. But for an oil portrait, a good starting point is about £5,000 (US$6,350),” she said. About 80cm x 70 cm (31 inches x 28 inches) is a popular size, though some clients go much larger, Merelli said.
“As a charity, we’re here to preserve portraiture. And I’m here to help clients find the right artists. We send the client a very tailored portfolio of three to five artists, coordinate conversations between them, and finally connect them. It’s a bespoke experience.”
While the society charges no fee for the consultation, “we take a cut of 30%, which is much smaller than a commercial gallery. That supports our annual exhibition,” Merelli said.
Some clients also choose to share photos of themselves instead of taking time for in-person sittings, Merelli said. “Photos also work as people tend to be very busy. Of course at least one sitting makes the experience more interesting, but if needed, they can. We also work with posthumous portraits so photos are required,” she said.
Most clients hang their portraits in living rooms, “so people get to admire them,” Merelli said. “If there’s a long hallway, many will put them there, or over a fireplace, if they have one.”
In 40 years of private commissions, she said, the society “has never had a complaint about a portrait. It takes some adjusting to see yourself as someone else sees you,” Merelli said.
“And today, the artist sometimes has to remind them it’s not Photoshop. Some clients even come back over the years, to see the effects of time on themselves or capture changes in time.”
Cappelletti has no plans to sit for another portrait, “but never say never. If I ever have kids, I’d want them to have this experience,” he said. “From start to finish, this is one of those things you’ve got to do in life.”
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3 min
Must even steak be politicised? The American Heart Association recently recommended eating more “plant-based” protein in a move to counter the Health and Human Services Department’s new guidelines calling for more red meat.
Few would argue that eating a Big Mac a day is good for you.
On the other hand, growing evidence, including a study last month in the Journal of the American Medical Association, suggests that eating more meat—particularly unprocessed red meat—can reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s in the quarter or so of people with a particular genetic predisposition.
The APOE4 gene variant is one of the biggest risk factors for Alzheimer’s.
You inherit one copy of the APOE gene from each parent. The most common variant is APOE3; the least is APOE2.
The latter carries a lower risk of Alzheimer’s, while the former is neutral. A quarter of people carry one copy of the APOE4 variant, and about 2% carry two.
APOE4 is more common among people with Northern European and African ancestry. In Europe the variant increases with latitude, and is present in as many as 27% of people in northern countries versus 4% in southern ones. God smiled on the Italians and Greeks.
For unknown reasons, the APOE4 variant increases the risk of Alzheimer’s far more for women than men.
Women’s risk multiplies roughly fourfold if they have one copy and tenfold if they have two. Men with a single copy show little if any higher risk, while those with two face four times the risk.
What makes APOE4 so pernicious? Scientists don’t know exactly, but the variant is also associated with higher cholesterol levels—even among thin people who eat healthily.
Scientists have found that cholesterol builds up in brain cells of APOE4 carriers, which can disrupt communications between neurons and generate amyloid plaque, an Alzheimer’s hallmark.
The Heart Association’s recommendation to eat less red meat may be sound advice for people with high cholesterol caused by indulgent diets.
But a diet high in red meat may be better for the brains of APOE4 carriers.
In the JAMA study, researchers at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute examined how diet, particularly meat consumption, affects dementia risk among seniors with the different APOE variants.
Higher consumption of meat, especially unprocessed red meat, was associated with significantly lower dementia risk for APOE4 carriers.
APOE4 carriers who consumed the most meat—the equivalent of 4.5 ounces a day—were no more likely to develop dementia than noncarriers. (
The study controlled for other variables that are known to affect Alzheimer’s risk including sex, age, physical activity, smoking, alcohol consumption and education.)
APOE4 carriers who ate the most unprocessed meat were at significantly lower risk of dying over the study’s 15-year period and had lower cholesterol than carriers who ate less. Go figure. Noncarriers, however, didn’tenjoy similar benefits from eating more red meat.
The study’s findings are consistent with two large U.K. studies.
One found that each additional 50 grams of red meat (equivalent to half a hamburger patty) that an APOE4 carrier consumed each day was associated with a 36% reduced risk of dementia.
The other found that older women who carried the APOE4 variant and consumed at least one serving a day of unprocessed red meat had a cognitive advantage over carriers who ate less than half a serving, and that this advantage was of roughly equal magnitude to the cognitive disadvantage observed among APOE4 carriers in general.
In all three studies, eating more red meat appeared to negate the increased genetic risk of APOE4.
Perhaps one reason men with the variant are at lower Alzheimer’s risk than women is that men eat more red meat.
These findings might cause chagrin to women who rag their husbands about ordering the rib-eye instead of the heart-healthy salmon.
But remember, the cognitive benefits of eating more red meat appear isolated to APOE4 carriers.
Nutrition is complicated, and categorical recommendations—other than perhaps to avoid nutritionally devoid foods—would best be avoided by governments and health bodies.
Readers can order an at-home test from any number of companies to screen for the APOE4 variant.
The Swedish researchers hypothesize that APOE4 carriers may be evolutionarily adapted to carnivorous diets, since the variant is believed to have emerged between one million and six million years ago during a “hypercarnivorous” period in human history.
The other two APOE variants originated more recently, during eras when humans ate more plants.
APOE4 carriers may absorb more nutrients from meat than plants, the researchers surmise. Vitamin B12—low levels have been associated with cognitive decline—isn’t naturally present in plant-based foods but is abundant in red meat.
Foods high in phytates (such as grains and beans) can interfere with absorption of zinc and iron (also high in red meat), which naturally declines with age. So maybe don’t chuck your steak yet.
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