“I was quite beside myself,” says he, “with enthusiasm. I could not eat, and had no inclination to sleep. I sat up till three o’clock looking at the picture; and early in the morning I rose to place myself once more before it. I only took my eyes from the painting to read some book that made reference to the Spaniard whom I believed its author, or to the Flemish artist to whom, by vague report, it was attributed.”
To trace the pedigree of the picture was the possessor’s next object; and, in Pennant’s London, he found mentioned the house of the Earl of Fife, as standing on part of the site of the palace of Whitehall, anciently called York House, which Mr. Snare confuses with the York House beyond Hungerford Market, the family mansion of the Duke of Buckingham. Among the works which adorned Fife House, Pennant mentions—
“A head of Charles I., when Prince of Wales, done in Spain when he was there in 1623 on his romantic expedition to court the Infanta. It is supposed to have been the work of Velasco.”
Here was some clue. Mr. Snare then traced the owner of Radley Hall to have received the picture from a connoisseur, who in his turn received a number of pictures from the Earl of Fife’s undertaker, after his lordship’s funeral, in 1809.
Next he discovered a quarto pamphlet, entitled, “Catalogue of the Portraits and Pictures in the different houses belonging to the Earl of Fife, 1798.” A reprint of this catalogue was then found in the possession of Colonel Tynte, of Halewell, dated in 1807, the only alteration being a slight addition to the preface. Colonel Tynte remembers having been shown the pictures at Fife House, by the Earl himself. On page 38 of the Catalogue, under the head, “First Drawing-room,” the following entry occurs:—
“Charles I. when Prince of Wales. Three quarters. Painted at Madrid, 1625, when his marriage with the Infanta was proposed.
—— Velasquez. This picture belonged to the Duke of Buckingham.”
Pennant, however, speaks of the portrait as a head; but this may be owing to confused recollection, especially as there appears to have been in the ‘Little Drawing-room of the hall’ a head of Charles I. by old Stone.
Two persons, upon inspecting the portrait, next identified it as the picture they had seen at the connoisseur’s, and at the undertaker’s.