Back of a hand tinted Carte de Visite announcing a reward for the stolen painting by Thomas Gainsborough of Duchess of Devonshire 1876
During her years in the public eye, Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire was painted several times by both Thomas Gainsborough and Joshua Reynolds. After having been lost from Chatsworth House for many years, it was discovered in the 1830s. In 1841 she sold it to a picture dealer for £56, and he later gave it to a friend, the art collector Wynn Ellis. When Ellis died, the painting went for sale at Christie's in London in 1876, where it was bought by the Bond Street art dealer William Agnew for the then astronomical sum of 10,000 guineas. Three weeks later it was stolen from the London gallery of Thomas Agnew & Sons, a theft that was highly publicised at the time, and for years the newspapers printed stories about claimed sightings of the painting.[ 25 years later it become known that the thief had been the notorious "Napoleon of Crime", Adam Worth, who had taken it to his homeland, the United States. In early 1901, through the American detective agency Pinkerton's, he negotiated a return of the painting to Agnew's son for $25,000. The portrait and payment were exchanged in Chicago in March 1901, and a couple of months later the painting arrived in London and was put up for sale. The Wall Street financier J. P. Morgan immediately travelled to England to obtain the painting and later claimed to have paid $150,000 for it. In 1994 it was purchased by the 11th Duke of Devonshire for the Chatsworth House collection for $408,870.
Size: 3264px × 5211px
Photo credit: © still light / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: 1870s, aged, antique, art, artist, cavendish, century, company, devonshire, duchess, engraving, fashioned”, gainsborough, historical, history, image, london, nostalgia, photo, photos”, photo”, picture, retro, reward, sepia, stereoscopic, tinted, vintage, “, “carte-de-visite, “nineteenth
