QUEEN AS ART EXPERT

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 138, 7 December 1929, Page 20

QUEEN AS ART EXPERT

ERROR IN A GAINSBOROUGH

How the great knowledge of art possessed by the Queen enabled her to detect a mistake unnoticed by the fani- ! oils experts •of the ..'day;-, is told jn the October number of the "Connoisseur.'?

Art dealers have frequently been purprised by the accuracy of Her Majesty's judgment, but those who know her intimately realise that if she had not been a Queen she might have been known as one of the foremost-authori-ties, on art of her. age. r- :.■■:■:.: ' .-,; Until quite: recently a Gainsborough picture in the Lady Lever Aft Gallery at Port Sunlight has always been described as a portrait of Princess Augusta Sophia, second daughter of George 111. It was sold as such in the 'iarland Peck collection, 1920, and entered as such in ,-i recently issued illustrated catalogue of the. Lady Lever Gallery, j : The Gainsborough, picture was not a portrait of. Princess Sophia, but of Anne .Luttrel, Duchess, of Cumberland, sister-in-law of George 111. . Although hundreds •of men and women have seen the Gainsborough picture, including some of the greatest art authorities.in the country,'it remained for the Queen to detect the error. ' Apparently, the Queen saw a copy of the catalogue; for she communicated the fact that the description was an error, and informed the authorities that the portrait was one of Anne Luttrcl. The Queen, has a wide knowledge of 18th century portraiture, and perhaps she alone of all the-art lovers in this country had the knowledge which enabled her to say at once that a mistake had been made. ■ , The "Connoisseur" says: Anne Luttrel was one of the most celebrated beauties of her time. Eldest daughter of Simon. Luttrel, first Baron Irnham, afterwards Earl of Carhampton, she was th"c widow of Christopher Horton, ol Catton, when she captivated the affections of the Duke. ;. As the Duchess she does not appear to have been a complacent sitter, for Wright, of Derby, complains bitterly of the lady's vagaries, when he painted her at Bath, and records that neither of her portraits by Kenolds pleased her Gainsborough, however, appears to have entirely satisfied the Duchess, for both she.and the Duke repeatedly sat to him : lhe lady was/in advance of her time' and found herself in agreement with King George lIL in preferring Gainsborough to Reynolds as the greatest portrait painter of that day, an opinion that posterity has endorsed, though iormerly it was. ridiculed. .■ :Mr. C. Reginald Grundy, the Editor ol the "Connoisseur," told a "Daily Chronicle" representative that the Queen's sense of art criticism, as applied to portraiture of this period had. been shown some years ago. On that occasion Mr. Grundy was conducting the Queen round a large private collection. On coming to an example of the period a stop was made. The Queen announced that the description of tho portrait was probably inaccurate, that tho; picture represented another person. -