RSS

Contact us

Friday 5 December 2008

Wanted! Lost portraits

Martin Gayford on his exhibition of Constable portraits.

‘Lost’ in this context sometimes has a particular meaning. When my daughter was about eight she briefly vanished from adult surveillance. When located and asked how this had happened, she replied accusingly, ‘I wasn’t lost, I was forgotten about.’ Something similar can happen to art, in two ways.

Firstly, private owners are under no obligation to inform the world of scholarship of what they’ve got. So they may be perfectly well aware that they’ve got a Watteau hanging on the drawing-room wall. Simultaneously, the same item may be discussed in scholarly journals and PhD theses, without the authors of those texts having the slightest idea of where the picture actually is.

Then, of course, the owner of a Monet or Gainsborough has every right to sell it to someone else, without notifying any art historian of the transaction. Even if they don’t, eventually in the natural course of events they will die and leave the thing to someone else.

At that point, a common trait in human psychology may kick in. That is, a refusal to believe what seems to be too good to be true. That kind of process explains why, for example, some years ago two fine Canalettos emerged from a garage in South Africa. They had been bought, attributed to Canaletto, by the father of the man who stored them with his car. But the latter had obviously not believed — or forgotten —- that information.

The world — or at least Britain — seems to be full of lost Constables. They appear all the time. We’ve got one in our exhibition. It isn’t a picture we were looking for, or indeed that anybody previously knew existed. It just popped up last year on the art market, which wasn’t an unusual event.

More articles from: Martin Gayford | this section

Print this article  |  Email to a friend  |  Permalink  |   Comment

Post this entry to:   del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit

Advertisement

Spectator Business | Apollo Magazine

Corporate | Advertising | Privacy | Terms

Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London, SW1H 9HP

All Articles and Content Copyright ©2008 by The Spectator | All Rights Reserved