The Vanishing Velázquez

by Laura Cumming

  In Scotland, in those days, jurors were allowed to question the witnesses; and these witnesses included the servants who cleaned the picture and the typesetters who worked with Snare and testified to his depression and downfall, as well as experts summoned all the way from London—Soho dealers, English artists and European connoisseurs—testifying against the highest figures in the Edinburgh art establishment, then, as now, university professors and Royal Scottish Academicians. A portrait emerges of Edinburgh society, as well as the Victorian art world with all its fantastical confusions about Velázquez.

  John Snare was represented on a pro bono basis by George Young QC, one of the sharpest young silks in Scotland, a future lord advocate and member of parliament, who would eventually become so famous for his rapid wit and rigor, and his severely logical cross-questioning of hostile witnesses, that he was retained as the senior counsel in almost every important case. His opponent was the much less ambitious Erskine Douglas Sandford QC, whose case for the Trustees is characterized by a complacent and conspiratorial hauteur as if he scarcely needed to defend them at all, so patently outrageous were the claims against them. Both lawyers show signs of genuine incredulity during the trial when these so-called expert witnesses cannot manage even one shared opinion about any aspect of the painting.

  George Young opens for Snare with a tart recitation of the pertinent passage from the warrant that most exposes its full absurdity, so that the jury may be in no doubt.

  “After the death of the 2nd Earl Fife, Fife House, in Whitehall, with everything therein contained, including the picture in question, was taken possession of by the Trustees in perpetuity. Fife House was thereafter sold by the Trustees. Before the sale, the picture in question, with the other pictures, plate, and wines, were packed up to be transmitted to Duff House in Banffshire, and other houses in Scotland, during or subsequent to the month of February 1809, and the picture has been since either stolen or surreptitiously abstracted. It remained effectually hidden and concealed ever since.”

  Effectually hidden, asks Young? How can it conceivably be described as hidden in all the brilliant newspaper glare? “Snare publishes first one pamphlet, then another, to establish the genuineness of the picture, and the consequence is that the whole Republic of Art, and all the critics, and all the periodicals, take up the question of its genuineness. Is it not strange the way the controversy should rage for years in London and yet the Trustees should never find out that the subject of the public controversy is a picture supposedly stolen from the Fife Gallery?”

  And stolen or surreptitiously abstracted—which is it? “There is no specification as to when or where this painting was lost. The Trustees admit themselves that they cannot tell how. It may be that it was never packed up at all. It may be that it was stolen from Duff House. We do not know that it might not have been given or sold by Earl Fife himself to someone in London.”

  Having dispatched the warrant with relish, Young proceeds to his client’s innocence. His first task is to establish that the picture was legitimately acquired at a public auction in front of numerous witnesses, and he summons none other than Mr. Benjamin Kent, late of Radley Hall, now retired to Gravesend.

  Did he sell a portrait of Charles I when Prince of Wales at an auction in October 1845? He did.

  Has he seen that portrait since arriving in Edinburgh for the trial? He has.

  Each witness is required to examine the picture before giving evidence to the court; it is on display in a private room at (of all places) Tait’s Hotel.

  Does he have any idea how long this portrait had been in Radley Hall before the sale? Mr. Kent certainly does. It belonged to his father-in-law, Mr. Archer, a picture dealer who worked in Oxford and retired to Radley, where the painting hung in the principal drawing room from 1821 to 1845, though he owned it long before that.

  Where did he get it? It was acquired from a London dealer called Charles Spackman.

  One of the jurors is astute enough to ask Kent whether his father-in-law ever mentioned the 2nd Earl Fife. The answer is a brisk and decisive no.

  The name of Charles Spackman was well known to Snare, for back in 1846 he, too, had begun by applying straight to Kent for information about the painting.

  “It came into my father-in-law’s possession between 1806 and 1812,” Kent had written back:

  and was purchased before that by Charles Spackman, who was in business with Mr Archer, sending him pictures to Oxford. Spackman resided for many years at Nos 34 and 39 Gerrard Street Soho, and being considered an excellent connoisseur in Pictures, I have no doubt would be well remembered in that vicinity. If he is now living, further information might be obtained from him. There was also Mr Foote, a celebrated Picture-cleaner, who was much employed by Spackman and I would recommend your making some inquiries of Mr Anthony of Lisle Street . . . My father-in-law believed that the painting was by Van Dyck.

  Snare’s response to this deflation was to ignore it. “I had so thoroughly investigated the history and style of Vandyck my conviction had become proof against all opinion.” In the meantime he followed Kent’s directions straight into a dead end. Mr. Anthony knew nothing, Mr. Foote had recently departed this life and Charles Spackman had been dead for twenty years.

  With this in mind, Snare had the desperate idea of pursuing the undertaker who had conducted the 2nd Earl’s funeral in 1809, as if he would know anything, but unsurprisingly could not trace him after almost four decades. Snare grew despondent, until a brilliant notion struck: what about the company hired to remove the furniture from Fife House after the 2nd Earl’s death? They might know what happened to the paintings. Snare worked his way through the narrow streets of Soho, knocking on doors, asking questions, pursuing every suggestion until he turned up the name of John Marshall, dealer and upholsterer of Gerrard Street—his premises only a couple of doors from Spackman’s—who may have removed the 2nd Earl’s goods. John Marshall, too, had just died.

  Still Snare was resourceful. He managed to find an old lady in Soho Square who once worked for Marshall and recalled that he had some connection with Spackman. Better still, she even claimed to remember “the removal of pictures and furniture of the Earl Fife, from Fife House, Whitehall to the premises of Mr Marshall in 1809.” The only trouble with her testimony was that she ceased working for Marshall in 1807, was illiterate and now in her dotage. She could only sign a statement X, her mark.

  Snare realized that this fragile testimony was scarcely enough to establish a connection between his painting and the 2nd Earl Fife, but he now set off in pursuit of something even more ephemeral—John Marshall’s old account books. Amazingly, some of the pages had survived, torn out of their original volumes and sold as serviceable paper; so expensive was paper in those days that even used sheets had commodity value. Tipped off by Mr. Crisp the printseller of Newman Street that the pages may have been bought by Mr. Portch the cheesemonger of Goodge Street, Snare rushed rapidly through Soho, across Oxford Street and up Tottenham Court Road in the hope that they had survived and had not been used for shop receipts or, worse, to wrap up a hunk of sweating cheddar.

  Luckily, Snare got there in time and managed to bargain with the puzzled Portch for the remaining portions of the account books, which by astounding fluke happened to include the relevant years. With these fragments Snare shored up his case. In one, dated 1816, he found this: “Received this day from Hore’s Wharf one close case, the property of the Earl of Fife.” Even better, in 1817, was this: “Received from Lord Fife 15 Pictures, various sizes and subjects.” Marshall had dealt pictures with Fife! Snare was even able to establish from another batch of wastepaper sold to Mr. Painter the tobacconist that Spackman and Marshall had definitely done business in 1807.

  Snare believed he had found clinching proof in this urban village of Soho, with its wonderfully named tradesmen. In his scenario the picture was removed from Fife House in 1809 by the dealer John Marshall, who sold it to Spackman, who passed it to Archer, who had it for decades
before the Radley Hall auction in 1845.

  But his theory was full of anomalies. If the 2nd Earl Fife died in 1809, then which Fife was doing business with John Marshall in 1816 and 1817? And since the Velázquez was definitely hanging on the wall of Fife House in 1807—it appears in Fife’s own catalogue, updated that year—then what was the value of that scrap of evidence indicating dealings between Marshall and Spackman in 1807? After all, the picture didn’t vanish from Fife House until 1809, after the earl’s death. Or so the Trustees insisted. This point would be raised at the trial.

  • • •

  George Young’s next witness is Marshall’s chief employee, John Brown, who was with the old man on his deathbed when he reminisced about some of his grand customers, including the late Earl Fife:

  Q. Did Marshall ever speak of having got pictures from the Earl?

  A. He did, and furniture besides.

  Q. Did he ever speak about the Earl being in difficulties?

  A. Yes, I heard him say that the late Earl had come to him several times, and he was obliged to find money for him.

  Erskine Sandford, for the Trustees, objects with theatrical disbelief:

  Q. Which Earl Fife did he say had borrowed from him?

  A. The late Earl Fife.

  Q. Are you aware how many Earls Fife there have been within this century?

  A. I am not.

  In fact there had been three: James Duff, the 2nd Earl, owner of the Velázquez; his brother Alexander, who survived him by only two years; and the 4th Earl, James Duff (a veteran of the Peninsular War), who is still alive and living in Duff House at the time of the trial. John Brown is asked again which earl is supposed to have had money troubles and he pinpoints the one before this one, who died as long ago as 1811.

  The 2nd Earl Fife was rich enough to own Balmoral, as well as all his other estates, and the Trustees were even at this moment engaged in negotiating its sale to the royal family. The mocking implication of Sandford’s question—that none of these earls could possibly be short of a shilling—is apparently lost on the London dealer.

  But nothing at all is said, and nothing asked, about the finances of the 3rd Earl Fife, who had six children and was not a beneficiary of his brother’s will, bypassed as he was by the Trust.

  Another of Marshall’s foremen, Jacob Wilson, testifies that he distinctly remembers seeing the painting hanging in the drawing room of Marshall’s Gerrard Street premises in 1804. Perhaps it was being cleaned. He was much struck by it, he says, and remembered it well when he saw it again in the Old Bond Street exhibition.

  Young thinks better than to remark on the enormous time lapse and has the witness address the picture instead:

  Q. Do you remember any part of it particularly?

  A. I remember the general features of the picture—and particularly the background, and also a globe. The background is very striking and the face very beautifully painted. It is a wonderful picture.

  Wilson gets a mauling from the Trustees’ counsel, insinuating that this Soho tradesman cannot possibly be any judge of pictures, still less able to remember this one after so many years:

  Q. Were you frequently back at Marshall’s after you left him?

  A. Sometimes.

  Q. Were you ever in the drawing-room after you left?

  A. I never was.

  Q. You cannot undertake to swear that this is even the same picture, can you?

  A. I say it is.

  Q. You have never dealt in paintings?

  A. No, but I have valued them.

  Q. So you consider yourself a good judge of paintings, then?

  Poor Wilson retorts, in the time-honored phrase, “I know a good painting when I see one.”

  Wilson is characterized as a lowlife from Gerrard Street—“where many people are not respectable”—though in fact he was based in elegant Wigmore Street in Marylebone. But Gerrard Street becomes a leitmotif for the Trustees’ lawyers, who keep needling away at its supposed notoriety as a den of crooks and prostitutes to discredit the claimant’s witnesses, many of whom carried on their business in Soho. The response from the London witnesses is surprise, and mounting outrage. Some of the most respected art dealers of the day were based in Soho, including William Seguier, who had identified the paintings from the Battle of Vitoria; and Henry Farrer of Wardour Street, from whom the National Gallery had purchased Velázquez’s Boar Hunt. Nor was John Marshall some rag-and-bone man, as Sandford sneeringly insinuated, but a dealer in fine art whose estate on his death was valued at many millions of pounds in today’s money.

  Next it is the turn of James West to describe the events on that icy January day when the sheriff officers burst into Tait’s Hotel. He remembers Snare growing quiet with despair as the painting was sealed up in the policeman’s box and removed from his sight:

  Q. You returned with Mr Snare to the hotel, and you saw that he was excited?

  A. Yes, he seemed to be very much cut up; seldom did I ever see any man giving such vent to his feelings as he did on that occasion.

  Q. Did he weep?

  A. He did, sir. He fell off in his diet. He could no longer do anything.

  What happened to the painting after Snare got it back from the Trustees: was it shown anywhere else, here or abroad? Young asks this crucial question almost in passing. West explains that it was shown for a few more days in Edinburgh and was meant to go to Glasgow and Liverpool and other cities, but as far as he knows was never exhibited again. Between March 1849 and the present month of July 1851 he has no idea what became of it. He himself has only just seen it again in Tait’s Hotel.

  James Tait himself is called to give the financial particulars. The picture took something close to £60, at a shilling a time, before it was seized, he thinks; Snare’s final bill was a punishing £102. Tait is somewhat tight-lipped, since no part of the story advances his commercial interests, but he does volunteer the startling disclosure that Burns and Inglis, agents of the Trustees, approached him personally with a devious offer to buy up Snare’s hotel debts, thus acquiring further leverage over their victim.

  Tait flatly refuses to accept the defense suggestion that this was only a joke; indeed, he repeats the allegation quite emphatically, a brave stance considering the social standing of the Trustees and their lawyers in Edinburgh circles.

  One of these Trustees was General the Honourable Sir Alexander Duff, brother of the present Earl Fife, and an old warhorse who had served in India, Egypt and South America and who, as an MP, was vigorously opposed to any kind of military reform. Some sense of his character comes across in a strange anecdote that haunts the case.

  It seems that when Snare was delving into the history of the Velázquez, he sought an expert of sufficiently high repute to guarantee a meeting with General Duff; this was the London dealer Thomas Mesnard. Mesnard’s task was to find out how the 2nd Earl got hold of his Velázquez in the first place and, if possible, how it came to leave the collection. The general sent him off with a stinging remark: “Mr Snare has got a fine picture and should keep quiet and not interfere in family matters.” What could this mean? That it was or wasn’t the Fife picture? That there was some dark business afoot, that family matters were complex? And what would happen if Snare didn’t keep his mouth shut?

  Thomas Mesnard has died in the intervening years, but his son William appears for Snare.

  William Mesnard was a gifted painter and restorer, who had worked on pictures for the National Gallery. His opinion of the painting is detailed in its appreciation, from the light in the eyes to the virtuosity of the brushwork. He believes the painting to be a Velázquez without any doubt, most likely the long-lost portrait of Charles, and worth somewhere between £5,000 and a colossal £10,000.

  Mesnard’s testimony marks a turning point in the trial. He sets the bar for a standoff between the witnesses on the value and authenticity of the painting. Anyone who now praises it as a Velázquez inevitably confirms its value, and thus the scale of Snare’s loss when
it was taken from him; the Trustees must therefore discredit such a witness. So Erskine Sandford immediately comes in with a trick question to challenge Mesnard’s expertise:

  Q. Have you much experience as to pictures by Velázquez?

  A. I cannot have much, there being so few in this country.

  Q. How many pictures of Velázquez are in the National Gallery?

  A. I think possibly two, a hunting picture and a portrait; and two at the Dulwich Picture Gallery, one a portrait of Philip IV.

  All the experts are asked this last question by Sandford; only Mesnard gives the right answer.

  Why does he think that the picture is by Velázquez? Because it is different from the work of any other artist of the period. It is not a Van Dyck and not a Rubens, and he cannot think who else could have the power to paint such a portrait in the early 1620s, so it follows that the artist is Velázquez.

  Mesnard might be speaking today. Even in the age of X-rays, dendrochronology and DNA testing, when the identity of a picture cannot be scientifically established and specialists have only their eyes and experience on which to rely, this remains the logical approach.

  George Young comes in for Snare:

  Q. Laying all these things together, that it is unlike the styles of other artists of the period, that it must have been painted by a great artist, and that it is like the style of Velázquez, you conclude that it is a Velázquez?

  A. Yes, and more than that, from the face being unfinished.

  Q. Is it known and spoken of among artists that Charles only gave Velázquez one sitting?

  A. I have always heard so.

  Q. And are you satisfied that the face was painted at one sitting?

  A. I am, perfectly so. I believe the rest was painted in later. It is from the marvellous touch of the face, like handwriting, that one can detect the mark of Velázquez.

  A London dealer who has traveled all over Europe now takes the stand. Louis Herrmann has seen paintings by Velázquez in public galleries and private houses in England, Germany, Italy and Spain. He is the most experienced of the witnesses and he has no doubt whatsoever that the portrait is by Velázquez.