SEBASTIAN SHAKESPEARE: Tragedy As Chloe Courtauld Dies Suddenly

Chloe, 47, was a scion of the family which made its fortune from textiles in the 19th century and founded London's world-renowned Courtauld Institute of Art
Chloe Courtauld shattered convention when she appeared in Country Life's celebrated ‘Girl in Pearls' page dressed in leathers, astride a flame-red motorbike, showing just a glimpse of diamond necklace.
But that famous shot has now become a heart-breaking memorial as Chloe has died suddenly aged only 47.
‘It's a real tragedy,' a family friend tells me.

‘She was utterly delightful.'
Chloe, pictured, a scion of the family which made its fortune from textiles in the 19th century and founded 's world-renowned Courtauld Institute of Art, is understood to have been discovered gravely ill earlier this month.
She died some time later at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford.

Cruelly, it is not the first such tragedy suffered by the family, as her beloved only sibling, Jamie, who was two years her senior, died equally suddenly in 2012.
Chloe made headlines when she and a friend trekked over 200 miles across Greenland's ice-cap in 21 days.
The 2009 expedition was inspired by her great-uncle, Augustine Courtauld, who survived one of the most extraordinary feats in Arctic exploration when he endured five months alone in the Thirties.
He was rescued from the polar ice floes having spent the entire time in temperatures of minus 41C.
Professor Julian Dowdeswell, director of the Scott Polar Research Institute for which Chloe's expedition raised significant funds, tells me: ‘It's tragic.

Chloe was a very good and highly motivated person.'
When she dazzled in Country Life in 1998, the magazine's then features editor, Melanie Cable-Alexander, described her as ‘perfect', hailing her as ‘a blast of fresh air' and ‘very, very beautiful'.
'A blast of fresh air': Chloe in her iconic 1998 'Girl in Pearls' pose for Country Life magazine
After working in motor racing, she embraced the eco-movement, before taking a job in marketing for the fashionable Kingham Plough restaurant in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire.
Chloe had a younger extended family as her mother, Anthea, had another daughter by her second husband, Hugh Wodehouse.
Her father, Richard Courtauld, had two more daughters with his second wife, the model-turned-photographer Jill Kennington, who was twice Vogue's cover-girl and also appeared in cult Sixties film, Blow-Up.
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