The Vanishing Velázquez

Diego Velazquez is rightfully accounted one of the greatest of painters, and also as one of the least understood. He is remembered for a series of magnificent portraits, usually of seventeenth century Spanish royalty and nobility but also including many perceptive studies of servants, court dwarfs, and other menials. With the slightest touch of his brush he could depict his sitters’ inner characters so well that some, including the King of Spain, often refused to pose for him lest he reveal too much. In the nineteenth century John Snare was a busy stationer and bookseller in Reading, England, prosperous enough that he could indulge a love for collecting old paintings. At one fateful auction Snare was struck by the grimy portrait of a young man, purchased it for a few pounds, then spent the rest of his life obsessed with it.

That portrait is the link between Velazquez and Snare. Snare became convinced that it was a long lost portrait of the future King Charles I of England, known to have been painted by Velazquez in 1623 during the Prince’s unsuccessful attempt to marry a Spanish Infanta, and spent the rest of his life attempting to convince the rest of the world of the rightness of his belief. This led to financial ruin, separation from his family, a lengthy lawsuit from a Scottish peer who believed he was the rightful owner of the painting, and eventual obscurity and an unknown grave in New York City.

Laura Cumming’s fascinating chronicle traces Snare’s story and tells it in parallel with that of Velazquez. The daughter of a painter and an art critic herself, Cumming does an excellent job of describing and analyzing Velazquez’s paintings for us, so that we actually feel we are standing in front of Las Meninas in the Prado, for example. She does just as good a job of detection in her reconstruction of Snare’s life, though the paper trail was frustratingly faint and she is forced to disappoint us in the end by revealing that no trace of Snare’s painting can be found today.

I finished this book knowing a great deal more about, and with an infinitely greater appreciation of, the work of Diego Velazquez. I also finished it with great sympathy for John Snare and the hope that someday, in some bank vault or dark corner, his painting will be rediscovered and finally verified as a Velazquez.

Laura Cumming leads us along the trail of her search for any information on the lost portrait of Charles I (when Prince of Wales) done by Velazquez. The Prince and his companion Buckingham are in Madrid in pursuit of the unwilling Infanta Maria Theresa. The suitors are behaving badly, the King is broke, Velazquez is painting and getting paid handsomely. “One of Charles’ pageboys had died of heatstroke, and fights between servants and soldiers were breaking out.” How this painting came about remains a mystery, but it definitely was made because we have a record of the exorbitant price the English paid. Cumming describes Velazquez’ paintings in wonderful language beginning with the large canvas of Las Meninas in the Prado, the painter’s mustache, the little Infanta, the courtiers positions. Then she notes other paintings and the sure brushwork of the painter that was admired even when he was alive. This is the very best part of the book! Interwoven in the Velaquez tale is the story of Snare, the 19th century bookseller from Reading and his obsession with the missing portrait painting of Charles. This portrait of Charles I existed, after all he paid an exorbitant amount for it. However, its whereabouts are unknown. Had the bookseller Snare located the painting in a closed boarding school? He seems very certain, acquires the painting, asks experts, exhibits the painting, turns down handsome offers and then becomes entangled in bizarre lawsuits (told in entertaining detail). Broke, Snare escapes to New York, ekes out a living, dies. What ever happened to the painting? No satisfactory ending to the story. Snare remains a dubious character, someone obsessed. There are several unanswered questions at the end.

The best way to read this book is as a Kindle book on a computer. The links work beautifully, and the display of the paintings is even better on screen than in the printed book

Tells a story about something interesting (Velazquez and one particular Velazquez painting) but lards it with a secondary story (a 19th century British bookseller who bought it cheap at auction and got involved in litigation over its provenance and history) and the cherry on top has something to do with the authors emotions difficulties in
midlife. Squeeze the Velazquez juice out of this…
Oddly, maybe because so little is known about Velazquez’s interior life, recent books involving him seem to follow this pattern — eg, Jonathan Brown’s personal memoir, which is only about 25% about Velazquez; and the book by (I forget the name) the art writer who died before he could really complete his work on the painter.
I know publishers think todays’ readers are so childish that even books about artists of the stature of V. have to be
made interesting by an emotional life-story about the modern-day Velazquez scholar, but….I wish this trend would end.

A fascinating mystery, inconclusive about the painting but profoundly insightful about the obsession of a collector, the legal issues in art appraisal and authentication, and the greatness of the master painter Velaszquez.

I am reading this book because it involves Velasquez, a painter who is in my top ten favourites, but I don’t believe for a second that the painting at the centre of this narrative is a work by Velasquez.

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