Lentorama 2023: It Happened on Holy Saturday

Day 37: What a long strange trip it was

In the mid-1780s the painter Charles Gainsborough executed a portrait of Georgiana Cavendish, the the Duchess of Devonshire. It then hung in the seat of the Duke of Devonshire, Chatsworth House... briefly. It went missing and its whereabouts were unknown until the 1830s, when it was found in the possession of a schoolmistress (who had cut it down so it would fit over her fireplace).

In 1841 she sold the painting to a dealer, who then gave it to a friend who was also an art collector. When that person died the painting went up for auction at Christie's, where it was sold to art dealer William Agnew for 10,000 guineas (at the time the highest price paid for a painting at auction). 

Three weeks later it was stolen out of Agnew's gallery. Once again, its whereabouts were unknown.

Things would stay that way for nearly 25 years, until it was discovered that Adam Worth, known as the "Napoleon of crime," had stolen it. He intended to sell it to bail his brother out of jail, but when his brother was released Worth decided to keep the painting. 

Which he did until 1901, when the Pinkerton detective agency negotiated the painting's return. In return for $25,000 (paid by Agnew's son), the Pinkertons collected the painting from Worth in Chicago (paying him most if not all of the 25 large) and retuned it to the UK. It made its return to British soil on Saturday, April 6, 1901.

It didn't stay that long. JP Morgan bought the painting soon after for a reported $150,000. The Morgan family held the painting until 1994, when it was sold at auction again. The 11th Duke of Devonshire paid $408,870 for the work, and finally returned it to Chatsworth House more than two centuries after it left.