Affronts he never forgave: ‘Mr Five Per Cent’
Christina Riggs, 18 April 2019
Calouste Gulbenkian didn’t acquire his astonishing fortune by wasting time. The day after the fifth Earl of Carnarvon died in a Cairo hotel room in April 1923, struck down either by sepsis or the curse of the pharaohs, Gulbenkian was on the phone to the Paris branch of Duveen Brothers, dealers in art and antiquities. He wanted to know what was going to happen to Carnarvon’s...