Pick of the year

The thrilling discovery of an Old Master drawing forms the centrepiece of London Art Week

- Huon Mallalieu

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.’