Tretchikoff

In the old town, we puttered through clothing boutiques and secondhand and antiques stores, where my wife bought a 1930s teapot and haggled ruthlessly for a reproduction of a painting by the kitsch Russian portrait artist Vladimir Tretchikoff.

The portrait of the Chinese Girl, by Vladimir Tretchikoff, came about after the artist met Monika Pon-su-san in her uncle's laundry in Cape Town, where she was working.

The man on the ground floor was a sculptor and one day he asked Tretchikoff: "Can I borrow your model?"

When I was asked by a journalist if I would let another artist paint me at this moment in time, I said: "No… but if Tretchikoff were alive, I would let him paint me again."

By the time I went to him Tretchikoff had run out, so he gave me one he had used in London when he was on tour.