then occupied, and added that she had burnt the piece which she had cut off.”
Although Bentley could not be certain that this was indeed the Duchess , his expert’s hunch told him to take a gamble. The widow Maginnis, while no expert in matters artistic, knew the value of money and was, moreover, an experienced haggler. After some lively negotiations lasting several hours, the old lady agreed to let the art dealer take the painting away on the basis that he knew a man who might pay as much as £70 for it. Bentley was careful not to mention whom the picture portrayed, for even thirty-five years after her death Georgiana’s name could only increase the expectations of an impoverished English schoolmistress.
On October 6, Mrs. Maginnis wrote:
Sir, I am obliged by your prompt attention to the disposal of the picture, and will take 70 for it, ready money, if the gentleman will give it, as I feel assured you will make the most you can of it.
Hoping you are in better health than when I last saw you, I remain, Sir, your obedient servant,
Anne Maginnis
In the end, Bentley managed to persuade Mrs. Maginnis to let him keep the portrait for the sum of £56, one of the most advantageous deals he ever made. According to his grandson, Bentley “never had the slightest doubt as to the genuineness of the picture; and to an artist it is obviously impossible for any copyist to success fully reproduce the swift, spontaneous touch of the greatest master of female portraiture.” The dealer carried the painting to London, where he cleaned it up and proudly displayed the Duchess to his admiring friends. “The picture remained in my grandfather’s possession for some time, and my mother still remembers it hanging in the dining room of her old home in Sloane Street,” Goelze wrote.
Bentley subsequently agreed to sell the Duchess to his friend and fellow connoisseur, a silk merchant named Wynn Ellis—“characteristically declining to take any profit, so I have been told,” Goelze reported. “Mr Bentley was the intimate friend and adviser of most of the great collectors during the early years of the late reign; but he made it a rule never to receive any remuneration for his services in assisting to form collections of pictures, a habit which I fear must in these days seem curiously Quixotic. The reason he gave was that in this way only could he prove his advice to be absolutely disinterested.”
Wynn Ellis (probably the painting’s fifth owner) started out in business in 1812 as a “haberdasher, hosier and mercer” and ended up as owner of the largest silk business in London and a man of immense wealth, excellent taste, and profound views. As a Member of Parliament for Leicester and a Justice of the Peace in Hertfordshire, where in 1830 he purchased a large estate called Ponsborne Park, Ellis advocated the repeal of the Corn Laws and considered himself an advanced liberal. But his most trenchant views happened to address a pastime dear to Adam Worth’s heart, for Wynn Ellis “had an intense dislike of betting, horse-racing and gambling.” Ellis did not gamble on anything, and least of all on the great paintings which he purchased with his grand fortune. John Bentley, on the other hand, was a most canny art dealer who did not scruple to extract a tough bargain from an elderly schoolmistress. So, whatever his grandson’s claims and the demands of friendship, it would have been far more characteristic of the man had Bentley charged Ellis a small fortune for the painting. Sadly, we will never know how much profit Bentley made on his investment of £56, for the silk manufacturer—like other, later owners of the portrait—flatly declined to say what he had paid for it and allowed the rumor to circulate uncontradicted that he spent just 60 guineas on the purchase. Ellis sent the painting to be engraved by Robert Graves of Henry Graves & Co., and the result, simply identified as Gainsborough’s Duchess of Devonshire , was
Although Bentley could not be certain that this was indeed the Duchess , his expert’s hunch told him to take a gamble. The widow Maginnis, while no expert in matters artistic, knew the value of money and was, moreover, an experienced haggler. After some lively negotiations lasting several hours, the old lady agreed to let the art dealer take the painting away on the basis that he knew a man who might pay as much as £70 for it. Bentley was careful not to mention whom the picture portrayed, for even thirty-five years after her death Georgiana’s name could only increase the expectations of an impoverished English schoolmistress.
On October 6, Mrs. Maginnis wrote:
Sir, I am obliged by your prompt attention to the disposal of the picture, and will take 70 for it, ready money, if the gentleman will give it, as I feel assured you will make the most you can of it.
Hoping you are in better health than when I last saw you, I remain, Sir, your obedient servant,
Anne Maginnis
In the end, Bentley managed to persuade Mrs. Maginnis to let him keep the portrait for the sum of £56, one of the most advantageous deals he ever made. According to his grandson, Bentley “never had the slightest doubt as to the genuineness of the picture; and to an artist it is obviously impossible for any copyist to success fully reproduce the swift, spontaneous touch of the greatest master of female portraiture.” The dealer carried the painting to London, where he cleaned it up and proudly displayed the Duchess to his admiring friends. “The picture remained in my grandfather’s possession for some time, and my mother still remembers it hanging in the dining room of her old home in Sloane Street,” Goelze wrote.
Bentley subsequently agreed to sell the Duchess to his friend and fellow connoisseur, a silk merchant named Wynn Ellis—“characteristically declining to take any profit, so I have been told,” Goelze reported. “Mr Bentley was the intimate friend and adviser of most of the great collectors during the early years of the late reign; but he made it a rule never to receive any remuneration for his services in assisting to form collections of pictures, a habit which I fear must in these days seem curiously Quixotic. The reason he gave was that in this way only could he prove his advice to be absolutely disinterested.”
Wynn Ellis (probably the painting’s fifth owner) started out in business in 1812 as a “haberdasher, hosier and mercer” and ended up as owner of the largest silk business in London and a man of immense wealth, excellent taste, and profound views. As a Member of Parliament for Leicester and a Justice of the Peace in Hertfordshire, where in 1830 he purchased a large estate called Ponsborne Park, Ellis advocated the repeal of the Corn Laws and considered himself an advanced liberal. But his most trenchant views happened to address a pastime dear to Adam Worth’s heart, for Wynn Ellis “had an intense dislike of betting, horse-racing and gambling.” Ellis did not gamble on anything, and least of all on the great paintings which he purchased with his grand fortune. John Bentley, on the other hand, was a most canny art dealer who did not scruple to extract a tough bargain from an elderly schoolmistress. So, whatever his grandson’s claims and the demands of friendship, it would have been far more characteristic of the man had Bentley charged Ellis a small fortune for the painting. Sadly, we will never know how much profit Bentley made on his investment of £56, for the silk manufacturer—like other, later owners of the portrait—flatly declined to say what he had paid for it and allowed the rumor to circulate uncontradicted that he spent just 60 guineas on the purchase. Ellis sent the painting to be engraved by Robert Graves of Henry Graves & Co., and the result, simply identified as Gainsborough’s Duchess of Devonshire , was
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