EMILY PRESCOTT: Mark Sloper loses fortune on Prince Harry artwork

Her neon artwork of the queen fetches five-figure sums. But punk artist Mark Sloper has found there is no demand for another of his royal subjects – Prince Harry.

He spent a small fortune creating the likeness of the Duke of Sussex with a ‘potential H-bomb’ written on it in neon – a phrase that features in the Sex Pistols’ controversial 1977 hit God Save The Queen – but now fears that he will have to throw it away.

“Nobody wants to buy it,” he tells me. “There’s absolutely no interest. It’s currently in the studio and worth about ten thousand dollars, but I think I’m going to have to take it down.

Some of his pieces featuring the Queen sell for £12,500, but he believes his artwork of Prince Harry, with the lyrics to God Save The Queen by the Sex Pistols

He thinks his subject matter has become too ‘toxic’, adding: ‘All my work of the Queen sells out immediately so it seems the UK public doesn’t like it.’

The Queen’s coins – which sell for £12,500 each – aren’t the only successful royal portraits. His Kate Middleton quickly sold for thousands.

Sloper, who works under the name Illuminati Neon, says the Queen is “the only royal I love”, adding that all of her children are “kids”.

He even submitted portraits of Her Majesty to the Royal Household for approval, including one featuring the monarch with blue hair and a nose ring. He was told the Queen ‘burst out laughing’ when she saw him – but the Prince Philip tattoo he gave her was too much, and the royal crest would have been preferred. “I never got the print back, so let’s assume it might be hanging in his toilet,” he said.

Tracey Emin has demanded part of her neon artwork be removed from Downing Street following the Partygate scandal. It is now at the British Embassy in Paris.

Speaking at the Castle Fine Art Gallery in London, Sloper said he would like to see some of his work in No 10 and had heard that assistants now wanted “a funkier image”.