Christine Keeler, 1963. Photograph by Lewis Morley.

Christine Keeler 1963, Lewis Morley (Australian, born 1925), Gelatin-silver print

The urban myth that the photograph of Christine Keeler astride an Arne Jacobsen chair was taken when she was a model is false in more senses than one.

First, the chair used in the photo turns out to be a copy of the original. The hand-hold aperture cut out of the back was a ploy to avoid the legalities of copyright. Secondly the photograph was taken, not on a modelling session, but at the height of the revelations regarding the exposure, of the going ons, of the War Minister and a young female, caught up in an affair which became known as ‘The Scandal’ or ‘The Profumo Affair’.