Guy Stair Sainty

Life and education

Guy Stair Sainty was born on 7 December 1950, the son of Christopher Lawrence Sainty. His father was Chief Engineer and Director of Carrier Engineering Co Ltd. He attended Highfield School in Hampshire and Westminster School, London, and continued his education in Rome and at The College of Law in London. In 1979, he moved to New York and founded the Stair Sainty Gallery.

After his first marriage, which produced his children Charles, Clementine and Della, ended in divorce in 1993 and ecclesiastical annulment, Sainty married Elizabeth Pierson, a private dealer in 19th and 20th century art in New York, in Washington on 28 May 1995 and in a second ceremony at the London Oratory on 28 September 1995. With Elizabeth he had three children, George, Julian and Arabella. In 2005 they founded Stair Sainty Ltd at a premises at 38 Dover Street, London W1S 4LN, which they share with two other art dealers, Edmondo di Robilant and Marco Voena.

Sainty has a half-brother by his father's first wife, Sir John Sainty, retired Clerk of the Parliaments.

Published works

Sainty has contributed to many publications on art of the early modern period. He has written numerous articles on nobility, European royal dynasties, and orders of chivalry. In 1998 he assisted with the return of the Almanach de Gotha. Sainty also maintains a website detailing the histories of many chivalric orders. His published works include:

Appointments, awards, and decorations

Sainty has been involved in the world of chivalry and heraldry for many years. He has served as one of three consultants to the Committee on the Orders of Saint John of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta and The Alliance of the Orders of St. John of Jerusalem. He is a Fellow with the International Commission on Orders of Chivalry. Sainty is a correspondent member of the Real Academia Matritense de Heraldica y Genealogia (Royal Academy of Heraldry and Genealogy of Madrid) and has served as a County Staff Officer (Sussex) in the St. John Ambulance. Sainty was later made an Officer, then an Associated Commander Brother of the Venerable Order of Saint John on 16 June 1989.

On 30 July 1992, he was promoted to the rank of (Associate) Knight in that Order, being transferred to full membership with the change of Statutes in 1999, and served as Vice-Chancellor of the Priory in the US until June 2008. He was formerly a member of the Savoy Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus but resigned in 2006 and is the Vice-Grand Chancellor of the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George (Hispano-Neapolitan branch), of which he is a Bailiff Grand Cross.

Sainty's armorial bookplate shows the membership insignia of the (Spanish) Order of St. Januarius, the Venerable Order of Saint John, the Order of St. Gregory the Great, the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George, the Order pro merito Melitensi of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta and the Order of Saint Joseph of Tuscany. Sainty has also served as a senior county staff officer to H.R.H. Prince Tomislav of Yugoslavia.

Sainty is an armiger, having had arms granted by the College of Arms in London, matriculated at the Court of the Lord Lyon in Edinburgh, and certified by the Cronista de Armas in Spain. The blazon of these arms is Azure a Chief Gules over all in pale two Hippocampuses respectant Or and in the Azure two Keys palewise wards upwards and outwards the bows linked in Or.

Libel suit by Rosario Poidimani

The court action for libel brought in Italy in December 2003 by Rosario Poidimani against Guy Stair Sainty on account of his published analysis of the claims to the Portuguese throne of Maria Pia de Saxe-Coburgo e Bragança and Rosario Poidimani: has now ended with a decision in favour of Guy Stair Sainty rejecting the claim of Mr Poidimani, by the Italian Court of Appeal of Venice, no. 730/2016 published 30/03/2016, RG n. 2667/2010, Repert. n. 680/2016 del 30.03.2016.