Pick of the year
Country Life UK|December 01, 2021
The thrilling discovery of an Old Master drawing forms the centrepiece of London Art Week
Huon Mallalieu
Pick of the year

THE National Gallery’s exhibition ‘Dürer’s Journeys’ (until February 27, 2022) finally opened last month. I have yet to see it, but some early visitors suggested it has been a little overstuffed. Anyone attracted by the principle that less is more, however, can put it to the test at a second Dürer show that opened on the same day.

‘Dürer and his Time’ (until December 12) is Agnews’ contribution to London Art Week (LAW; December 3–10) and it centres on the most important Old Master drawing to be discovered for decades. The 6½in by 6½in pen and-ink The Virgin and Child with a Flower on a Grassy Bench (Fig 1) was bought unframed in an American ‘yard’ or contents sale for $30 about five years ago by a Massachusetts couple, who then spotted and secured its frame.

No one was willing to give it much credence, assuming it to be fake or perhaps an engraving, until, led by a series of coincidences, Cliff Schorer, the entrepreneur and collector who is now a shareholder in Agnews, visited the couple. He has a well-deserved reputation for spotting sleepers, but was bowled over by this: ‘I have spent my life disbelieving things. Now, here I was out on the thinnest of limbs. But I was sure it was right.’

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