By Katie Barron, Communications Manager at the Wolfson Foundation
On 3 August 1961, the National Gallery unveiled a masterpiece. A portrait of Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, by the Spanish painter Francisco de Goya, had been saved from sale to an American collector by a grant of £100,000 from the Wolfson Foundation.
Just a few weeks later, the hunt was on for the thief of the painting.
The Wolfson Foundation unwittingly found itself at the heart of one of the most notorious art heists in history.
Holding on to a masterpiece
Goya painted Wellington after the Duke had defeated Napoleon’s forces and entered Madrid in 1812.
In June 1961, New York collector Charles Wrightsman bought the portrait at auction for £140,000, over £2 million in today’s money.
The prospect of a national masterpiece being shipped to the USA provoked outcry in the British press and in Parliament.
John Witt, Chairman of trustees of the National Gallery, wrote to Isaac Wolfson to ask for help. He wrote that ‘a highly critical situation has…now arisen concerning a picture which is an essential part of British history and which the National Gallery Board and others feel must at all costs be kept in this country.’
With the government under pressure to reduce expenditure, he explained that the Gallery needed to find a private source of funds to save the painting.
‘A turning point for patronage’
The Wolfson Foundation’s chairman, Harry Nathan, promptly responded, and had a ‘long and friendly talk’ with Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. The trustees of the Foundation unanimously agreed to provide £100,000 if the government contributed the remaining £40,000 to buy the painting from Wrightsman.
The Daily Telegraph said this example of cooperation between charitable foundations and government ‘may well come to be regarded as a turning point for patronage in Britain.’
On 3 August 1961, John Witt wrote excitedly to Harry Nathan that ‘as soon as the news came through yesterday, the Director went out and bought the picture a more suitable (temporary) frame and it is now hanging in the Vestibule.’
The Duke vanishes
On 22 August, the National Gallery had the awkward task of explaining to the Foundation that ‘Goya’s Portrait of the Duke of Wellington appears to have been stolen from here yesterday’.
Despite a wry comment about purchasing ‘a share in a blank wall’, the Wolfson Foundation honoured its six-figure commitment.
Meanwhile, the police began investigating the whereabouts of the masterpiece.
The story of the theft captured the public imagination, as news agencies received a series of anonymous ransom notes over several years. These letters described identifiable marks on the painting and demanded that the purchase price should pay for television licenses for pensioners.
The interest in Goya’s portrait of Wellington was such that the Duke even enjoyed a cameo role alongside James Bond. In the 1962 film Dr No, Sean Connery’s character admires the painting in the villain’s underwater lair.
The Duke is found
In May 1965, the Daily Mirror received a final anonymous letter with a left luggage ticket.
A far cry from the National Gallery, the police discovered Goya’s Wellington in the left luggage room of Birmingham New Street Station. It was undamaged but missing its frame.
The portrait was put back on display in 1966 and can still be seen at the National Gallery.
The Wolfson Foundation has continued to fund art for all to enjoy at museums and galleries across the UK, most notably through a longstanding partnership with Art Fund.
And the mystery of the missing painting continues to captivate us today. A 2022 film starring Helen Mirren and Jim Broadbent tells the story of Kempton Bunton, a retired taxi driver from Newcastle who handed himself in to the police in July 1965, claiming to have stolen Goya’s portrait.
Explore the Wolfson Foundation’s archive about Goya’s portrait of Wellington, managed by the Royal Society.
