Esoteric London

Royal Danish Embassy, Sloane Street, London, SW1. Photo © Roger Dean 2012

The above photograph shows a mural by the artist and sculptor Ole Schwalbe which adorns the facade of the Arne Jacobsen designed Royal Danish Embassy building on Sloane Street. Jacobsen is better known in Britain as a furniture designer but he will also always be linked with political scandal. It was upon one of his chairs that Christine Keeler posed naked for photographer Lewis Morley at the height of the Profumo Affair in 1963. According to Morley the chair used for the shot was not in fact an original 3107 but a copy with an aperture cut out of the back which he had purchased from a sale at Heal’s three years previously. The chair is now in the collection of the Victoria and Albert museum. R.D.