A glamorous princess and former reality star is locked in a bitter feud with her aristocratic father over the sale of one of Leonardo da Vinci’s most famous paintings in a fire sale of the family’s £2 billion art collection.
Princess Tamara Czartoryska is in a legal battle with her father Prince Adam – cousin of the now-abdicated Spanish King Juan Carlos 1 – over the £86 million he received for the collection of paintings, manuscripts and documents.
The 39-year-old former model, who was born in the UK but now lives in Portugal, says she was asked on the eve of her wedding to sign a document allowing her father to liquidate the foundation responsible for the precious art collection at a cut price to the Polish state.
The board of the foundation resigned in protest and Tamara claims her father – with whom she fell out after he married again – sent to money to a mysterious private bank account in Switzerland.
Princess Tamara, who moves in the same social circles as princes William and Harry was a regular on the London social scene at the turn of the millennium and counts Calum Best, British actress Chloe Bailey and model Sophie Anderton among her friends.
Princess Tamara Czartoryski is locked in a bitter feud with her father Prince Adam (pictured above on her wedding day) over the sale of one of Leonardo da Vinci’s most famous paintings in a fire sale of the family’s £2 billion art collection
The 39-year-old former model says she was asked on the eve of her wedding to sign a document allowing her father to liquidate the foundation in charge of the precious art collection. Pictured: Tamara taking part in a charity boxing match in 2005
She claims after the sale by her father (pictured with Tamara as a child) – with whom she fell out after he married again – £86 million had been sent to a mysterious bank account in Switzerland
She tried her hand at presenting and acting, became the face of the false tan company Fake Bake and appeared on a number of reality shows including Channel 4’s The Games and Cirque de Celebrite.
But now she is taking on a whole new challenge, in the form of her 77-year-old father.
In an exclusive interview with the MailOnline, the heiress said she was resigned to the fact that her father agreed to ‘donate’ a library of 250,000 manuscripts – including Casanova’s letters and Chopin’s music – and 86,000 works of art, including Leonardo da Vinci’s renowned Lady with an Ermine, to the Polish people.
But she has instructed lawyers to challenge his decision to liquidate the Czartoryski Foundation, which was set up by one of her ancestors during the 19th century, and transfer the proceeds of the sale to the Swiss bank account.
Piotr Glinski, the Polish deputy prime minister and minister of culture who signed the agreement, acknowledged at the time that the £86 million that the government paid for the collection is ‘way below the market price,’ which is widely estimated at more than £2 billion. He said the transaction can be viewed more as a ‘donation.’
The £86 million is currently in a new private foundation called Le Jour Viendra Foundation, set up by her father who is married to Josette.
It is registered in Liechtenstein, but the money is in a private Swiss bank account.
Tamara says she has already blocked an attempt to send the money to a private account in Cyprus.
‘The Leonardo was the golden egg but the whole collection was incredible,’ she told Mail Online.
‘It was in a family museum [in Krakow] which was opened to the public. It was meant to be saved for future generations. Legally it shouldn’t have been sold.
Princess Tamara, who moves in the same social circles as princes William and Harry was a regular on the London social scene at the turn of the millennium and counts Calum Best, British actress Chloe Bailey and model Sophie Anderton among her friends
She tried her hand at presenting and acting, became the face of the false tan company Fake Bake and appeared on a number of reality shows including Channel 4’s The Games and Cirque de Celebrite
But now the princess, who is pregnant with her first child (above) with showjumper husband Lourenco Vasconcelos, is taking on a whole new challenge, in the form of her 77-year-old father
In an exclusive interview with the MailOnline, the heiress said she was resigned to the fact that her father sold a library of 250,000 manuscripts and 86,000 works of art, including Leonardo da Vinci’s renowned Lady with an Ermine, to the Polish people for £86 million
She is trying to block the transfer of the £86 million to a new private foundation called Le Jour Viendra, which has been set up by her father. The ‘golden egg’ of the collection was the Lady with an Ermine, one of only four known paintings of women by da Vinci
‘Yet I was not consulted at any stage. The only thing I am happy about is that it will stay in Poland. The way I see it is that we are guardians of the collection. We are there to safeguard it for the next generation.’
Tamara, who now runs the company HC Sport Horses, which sells showjumpers worldwide from Portugal, is pregnant with her first child.
She married international show jumper and private equity fund manager Lourenco Vasconcelos last year and their son is due at the end of July. ‘We are very excited,’ added Tamara, who turns 40 on Monday.
She claims her father asked her to sign the liquidation document on the eve of her wedding, a society event in Portugal, which was attended by 250 people including her mother Nora Picciotto, 77, and former stepfather Baron Steven Bentinck.
‘We had a huge fight the night before my wedding and he threatened not to attend,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t really concentrating on what I was signing. I had other things on my mind as I had 250 guests coming from around the world.’
The Czartoryska Foundation was created in 1801 by Tamara’s ancestor Princess Izabela, who wanted to preserve Polish and European artefacts while her country was partitioned by neighbours Austria, Prussia and Russia.
One of the most renowned private collections in Europe, the Leonardo is one of only four known paintings of women by the Renaissance artist.
It is a portrait of Cecilia Gallerani, mistress to Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan, who was nicknamed ‘the white ermine’ at court.
Tamara claims her father asked her to sign the liquidation document on the eve of her wedding, a society event in Portugal, which was attended by 250 people including her mother Nora Picciotto, 77, (above with her mother) and former stepfather Baron Steven Bentinck
‘We had a huge fight the night before my wedding and he threatened not to attend,’ she told Mail Online. ‘I wasn’t really concentrating on what I was signing’
The Czartoryska Foundation was created in 1801 by Tamara’s ancestor Princess Izabela, who wanted to preserve Polish and European artefacts while her country was partitioned by neighbours Austria, Prussia and Russia
Among the collection were important works including Rembrandt’s Landscape with the Good Samaritan, sketches by Rembrandt (above), Auguste Renoir and Albrecht Dürer
However, there were other important works including Rembrandt’s Landscape with the Good Samaritan, sketches by Rembrandt, Auguste Renoir and Albrecht Dürer, Etruscan and Greek vases, Roman and Egyptian antiquities and a chair, which is believed to have come from the house of William Shakespeare.
Unfortunately, the Foundation was disbanded during World War II after it was looted by the Nazis.
The Leonardo, currently on display in Wawel Royal Castle, in Krakow, was damaged by the footprint of an SS soldier and Raphael’s Portrait of a Young Man has never been recovered.
But the remainder of the collection was repatriated and returned to the family and is now housed in Krakow’s National Museum.
It was Tamara’s father Prince Adam who set up the new Princes Czartoryski Foundation in 1991 after returning to Poland in the aftermath of the fall of the Iron Curtain.
Born in Seville, Spain, during the war, he had settled in England, after marrying his first wife, the film PR Nora Picciotto, now 77. But the marriage disintegrated, and the couple divorced when Tamara was still a child.
Initially the relationship between father and daughter was warm – both were on the Foundation’s council – but after Prince Adam married his second wife Josette in 2000, they became less close.
Initially the relationship between father and daughter was warm – both were on the Foundation’s council – but after Prince Adam married his second wife Josette in 2000 (above), they became less close and Tamara wasn’t invited to the wedding
Twelve years later, her stepmother joined the Foundation’s council. Tamara has barely seen her father since. ‘I wasn’t invited to any council meetings, which was obviously illegal,’ she claims
‘We grew apart when he got remarried,’ explained Tamara. ‘I wasn’t invited to the wedding. He only told me about it two days beforehand and told me not to fly over because it was going to be a small occasion. I later found out they had a huge dinner at San Lorenzo.’
Twelve years on, Tamara has barely seen her father. ‘I wasn’t invited to any council meetings, which was obviously illegal,’ she claims, ‘and I wasn’t sent any minutes. I was never given any excuse.’
In November 2016, she had a brief lunch with him in Madrid, where she was working but they did not discuss the sale. ‘I was working in a horse show,’ she explained, ‘running around and doing stuff. We made small talk and social niceties.’
It was only on December 29, after reading the New York Times, that she claims she discovered her father had sold the collection for a paltry £86 million.
‘Listen, in life you do the things the way you feel like it,’ Prince Adam told a press conference.
‘I felt like making a donation and that’s my choice. I am basically just following my ancestors who always worked for the Polish nation.’
It was only on December 29, after reading the New York Times, that Tamara, who sell showjumping horses, discovered her father had sold the collection for a paltry £86 million
Since then Tamara has tried to block the transfer of funds to the new foundation but she found out on March 29 that she had failed
However, Tamara believes it was not his choice to make because he had to get agreement of the whole council.
She later discovered that all of the directors had quit in protest a week before the sale as they had been excluded from the talks and feared the move might be illegal becaseu according to the Foundation’s statute, the collection is ‘non transferable and indivisible’.
She said: ‘There is no valid record in the Czartoryski Foundation’s books of any Council resolution approving the transfer of funds to any foreign or national Foundation.
‘Never have I participated in any meeting for negotiation of the sale of the Art Collection of the Czartoryski Foundation whether with individuals or public authorities.’
Since then Tamara has been in court to try to block the transfer of funds to the Swiss account. On March 29 she found out that she had failed.
She is now trying to reverse the transfer back from the private Swiss bank account back to Poland.
‘As sole heir of Prince Adam Czartoryski I am fully committed to co-operating with the Polish authorities in every effort to administer the funds resulting from the sale of the art collection for the benefit of the Polish people who paid for it,’ she said.
Sofia Almeida Ribeiro, the lawyer representing Princess Tamara, said there was concern the £86m transferred from a public foundation in Poland to a private Swiss bank account could be used for private purposes. Pictured: Tamara with her mother on her wedding day
Sofia Almeida Ribeiro, the lawyer representing Tamara, said: ‘100m euros was transferred from a public utility foundation in Poland, the Princes Czartoryski Foundation, to a private foundation, Le Jour Viendra Foundation, which at any moment may be distributed for private purposes.
‘Tamara never took part in this and as soon as she was informed, she raised strong opposition to any possibility of using the money to any purpose other than upholding the public interests of Poland, specially Krakow and the protection and promotion of the Czartoryski Art Collection.’
Prince Adam said he had no comment to make when approached by MailOnline.