staircase
Curator Katherine Carter with the restored Marlborough portrait in Chartwell's main staircase
After an intensive restoration, a portrait of John Churchill, the first duke of Marlborough, will go on public display for the first time ever at Chartwell, a country house in southeast England that once belonged to Winston Churchill, a descendant and admirer of the duke.
Removing layers of dirt, varnish and flaking paint uncovered striking new details in the painting, including a cavalry unit in the background—a nod to the Duke of Marlborough’s military record, according to Artnet’s Eileen Kinsella. The duke, who lived between 1650 and 1722, notched several major victories against the French at the battles of Blenheim, Ramillies and Oudenaarde.
The restoration work and accompanying research also revealed new information about the painting’s origins, as well as how it entered Churchill’s possession during the darkest days of World War II.
When Katherine Carter, the National Trust’s curator at Chartwell, first saw the historic painting in 2013, she was taken aback by its shabby state. It was too fragile to move or put on public display.
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Before restoration, the portrait was in dire condition. National Trust
“I suspect it was never hung here. It was in such poor condition and so large that it was difficult to find a space for it—always a problem at Chartwell to this day, with so many pictures and not much wall space,” she tells the Art Newspaper’s Maev Kennedy.
After philanthropists Jeff Mooney and Suzanne Bolton, a married couple from Canada, saw the painting during a private tour of Chartwell’s back rooms, they decided to donate more than $32,000 for its restoration, according to Artnet.
For years, the painting of the duke was thought to be a 19th-century copy of an 18th-century original. The artist was unknown, and it had been attributed to the “British School” in inventories, according to a statement from the National Trust, which owns and operates Chartwell.
But pigment analysis allowed researchers to date the painting to the late 17th or early 18th century. That means it was likely created during the lifetime of the duke. It appears to have been based on the Dutch artist Adriaen van der Werff’s 1705 portrait of the duke that hangs in Florence’s Uffizi Galleries. A joint analysis by the National Trust and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam suggests that an English artist made the copy. It’s now attributed as “After Adriaen van der Werff.”
“Though we aren’t able to attribute the painting to an artist, our research will continue, in the hope of finding the identity of its talented creator,” a representative of Chartwell tells Artnet.
For many years, experts thought the painting had belonged to the Churchill family for generations. But research at the Churchill Archives Center at Cambridge revealed that the portrait entered the family’s collections much later than previously thought.
Lord Saltoun of Scotland gave Churchill the painting on February 15, 1942, in the immediate aftermath of the Fall of Singapore. Churchill, who was prime minister at the time, later called it “the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history.”
In a note to Churchill’s secretary, Saltoun admitted that his initial skepticism of Churchill had transformed into gratitude and respect as the prime minister guided the country through its darkest days. He offered the portrait, he wrote, because “I feel a deep personal debt to the PM,” according to the Art Newspaper.
“I shall feel happy to have done something to lighten a personal debt, and it may bring him luck in what lies before him,” he added.
Churchill’s personal secretary, Kathleen Hill, conveyed Churchill’s boundless enthusiasm in her reply: “The PM is inclined to accept provided we do not write too gushing an acceptance!”
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The portrait after restoration National Trust
The Duke of Marlborough, after all, was a personal hero of Churchill’s. He wrote a million-word, four-volume biography of his ancestor during his so-called “wilderness years” in the 1930s and hung a print of the Uffizi portrait “at the foot of his bed so that it was the last thing he saw at night and the first thing he saw in the morning,” Carter tells the Art Newspaper.
To thank Saltoun, he sent back a copy of the biography, adding that “I shall always value the picture not only in itself, but also for the feelings so gracefully expressed in your letter to my private secretary, which prompted the gift.”
Visitors to Chartwell can now see the grand portrait hanging over the historic house’s main stairwell, in its rightful place at the center of Churchill family history.
“The addition of the Duke of Marlborough painting enriches the collection and provides visitors with a more intimate glimpse into Churchill’s life and legacy,” Carter says in the statement. The artwork underscores “the emotional support and encouragement that sustained Churchill during the war.”