published on February 24, 1870.
Ellis owned one of the finest art collections in England, and the great Gainsborough now took a prominent place in it. Did Wynn Ellis know for sure that “the painting which had been mutilated to hang above a foolish old woman’s smoke-grimed mantel shelf was … a pearl of rarest price”? Some, subsequently, had their doubts. “There was … a very general belief among those interested in art matters, that not a few of the pictures [in the Wynn Ellis collection] bearing the names of distinguished English painters were copies or imitations.” Had Wynn Ellis been too hasty in declaring the painting to be Gainsborough’s Duchess of Devonshire? “Though a great lover of art he was not an infallible judge,” one critic observed, “and it is recorded that his discovery that three imitation Turners had been foisted upon him at great prices led directly to his death”—an event which took place on January 8, 1875. Ellis was eighty-six years old and had amassed a fortune, it was estimated, little short of £600,000. His 402 paintings, along with “watercolour drawings, porcelain, decorative furniture, marbles &c.,” were left to the nation. The trustees of the National Gallery selected some forty-four Old Masters, as directed in Ellis’s will, and the rest of the vast collection was put up for auction. Gainsborough was then considered a modern artist and so the painting, too, was offered for sale by the auction house of Messrs. Christie, Manson & Woods.
After years in mysterious obscurity, Gainsborough’s Duchess was about to make her first public appearance in nearly a century, and tales of the charming Georgiana and her piquant history began to circulate once more in London’s salons. The auction was set for May 6, 1876, and suddenly the duchess was all the rage again: where the Georgians had fallen in love with the rumbustious woman herself, the Victorians were about to be smitten by Georgiana’s portrait.
EIGHT
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Worth
T o mark the first stage of his transformation from the raffish boulevardier of the rue Scribe to the worthy gentleman of London, Adam Worth established himself, Kitty, and Bullard in new and commodious headquarters south of the Thames, using the remaining profits from the sale of the American Bar and the stolen diamonds. Alerted by the Pinkertons and the Sûreté, Scotland Yard was already on guard and soon sent word to Robert Pinkerton, brother of William and head of the Pinkerton office in New York, that the resourceful Worth “now delights in the more aristocratic name of Henry Raymond [and] occupies a commodious mansion standing well back on its own grounds out of the view of the too curious at the west corner of Clapham Common and known as the West Lodge.”
Bow-fronted and imposing, the West, or Western Lodge was built around 1800 and had previously been home to such notables as Richard Thornton, a millionaire who made his fortune by speculating in tallow on the Baltic Exchange, and more recently, in 1843, to Sir Charles Trevelyan: precisely the sort of social connections Worth coveted. The rest of the gang, including Becker, Elliott, and Sesicovitch, lived in another large building leased by Joe and Lydia Chapman at 103, Neville Road, which Worth helped to furnish with thick red carpets and chandeliers.
Worth almost certainly knew that Scotland Yard was watching him, but since he entertained a low opinion of the British police in general and Inspector John Shore in particular, the knowledge seems to have worried him not a bit. With a high-mindedness that was becoming characteristic, Worth made no secret of his opinion that Shore was a drunken, womanizing idiot and declared him to be “a big lunk head and laughing stock for everybody in England [who] knew nobody but a lot of three card monte men and cheap pickpockets.” He had come a long way in his own estimation since he, too, had been a lowly pickpocket on the streets of
Ellis owned one of the finest art collections in England, and the great Gainsborough now took a prominent place in it. Did Wynn Ellis know for sure that “the painting which had been mutilated to hang above a foolish old woman’s smoke-grimed mantel shelf was … a pearl of rarest price”? Some, subsequently, had their doubts. “There was … a very general belief among those interested in art matters, that not a few of the pictures [in the Wynn Ellis collection] bearing the names of distinguished English painters were copies or imitations.” Had Wynn Ellis been too hasty in declaring the painting to be Gainsborough’s Duchess of Devonshire? “Though a great lover of art he was not an infallible judge,” one critic observed, “and it is recorded that his discovery that three imitation Turners had been foisted upon him at great prices led directly to his death”—an event which took place on January 8, 1875. Ellis was eighty-six years old and had amassed a fortune, it was estimated, little short of £600,000. His 402 paintings, along with “watercolour drawings, porcelain, decorative furniture, marbles &c.,” were left to the nation. The trustees of the National Gallery selected some forty-four Old Masters, as directed in Ellis’s will, and the rest of the vast collection was put up for auction. Gainsborough was then considered a modern artist and so the painting, too, was offered for sale by the auction house of Messrs. Christie, Manson & Woods.
After years in mysterious obscurity, Gainsborough’s Duchess was about to make her first public appearance in nearly a century, and tales of the charming Georgiana and her piquant history began to circulate once more in London’s salons. The auction was set for May 6, 1876, and suddenly the duchess was all the rage again: where the Georgians had fallen in love with the rumbustious woman herself, the Victorians were about to be smitten by Georgiana’s portrait.
EIGHT
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Worth
T o mark the first stage of his transformation from the raffish boulevardier of the rue Scribe to the worthy gentleman of London, Adam Worth established himself, Kitty, and Bullard in new and commodious headquarters south of the Thames, using the remaining profits from the sale of the American Bar and the stolen diamonds. Alerted by the Pinkertons and the Sûreté, Scotland Yard was already on guard and soon sent word to Robert Pinkerton, brother of William and head of the Pinkerton office in New York, that the resourceful Worth “now delights in the more aristocratic name of Henry Raymond [and] occupies a commodious mansion standing well back on its own grounds out of the view of the too curious at the west corner of Clapham Common and known as the West Lodge.”
Bow-fronted and imposing, the West, or Western Lodge was built around 1800 and had previously been home to such notables as Richard Thornton, a millionaire who made his fortune by speculating in tallow on the Baltic Exchange, and more recently, in 1843, to Sir Charles Trevelyan: precisely the sort of social connections Worth coveted. The rest of the gang, including Becker, Elliott, and Sesicovitch, lived in another large building leased by Joe and Lydia Chapman at 103, Neville Road, which Worth helped to furnish with thick red carpets and chandeliers.
Worth almost certainly knew that Scotland Yard was watching him, but since he entertained a low opinion of the British police in general and Inspector John Shore in particular, the knowledge seems to have worried him not a bit. With a high-mindedness that was becoming characteristic, Worth made no secret of his opinion that Shore was a drunken, womanizing idiot and declared him to be “a big lunk head and laughing stock for everybody in England [who] knew nobody but a lot of three card monte men and cheap pickpockets.” He had come a long way in his own estimation since he, too, had been a lowly pickpocket on the streets of
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