THE DUKE.
| Author | Bennett, Geoffrey |
The taking of a major artwork from a national gallery would not normally sound like a promising scenario for an entertaining comedy-drama. Its portrayal in the recently released film The Duke is a testament to the highly unusual story that lies behind it and its central character, the improbably named Kempton Cannon Bunton.
The film tells the story of the removal of Francisco Goya's Portrait of the Duke of Wellington from the National Gallery in London in 1961. The background, which is important to the story, is that the painting was sold by Sotheby's in London in 1960 to an American art collector, Charles Wrightsman, for 140,000 [pounds sterling]. A public uproar ensued about the loss to America of a national treasure which led to Mr Wrightsman generously offering to sell the painting to the nation for the price he had paid for it. The Wolfson Foundation and the Treasury funded the purchase and Wellington promptly went on display at the National Gallery in London. Only nineteen days later it had disappeared without trace, the first time in the history of the National Gallery that something like this had happened. There was widespread concern at the highest levels. A reward of 5,000 [pounds sterling] was offered for the return of the painting. It was widely assumed that this was the work of a skilled and highly professional criminal enterprise. The gulf between this assumption and the story of the improbable reality behind it is what the film explores, one might say luxuriates in. One example, which also reflects the public interest at the time, is the scene, towards the end of the film, where Bunton and his wife are portrayed watching the first James Bond film Dr No. Bond is in the lair of the criminal mastermind Dr Julius No when he notices the Wellington portrait perched on an easel and comments, "so that is where it is". (1) The point is that Dr No was released in October 1962 when the whereabouts of the painting was completely unknown. In fact, at the time it was concealed in a council house in Newcastle by a father-of-five who had held a variety of jobs some of them, as the film suggests short-lived, including working as a taxi driver.
The first half of the film sets the scene and paints a vivid portrait of the insufferable but well-meaning Bunton and his long-suffering wife played magnificently by Jim Broadbent and Helen Mirren. The broad outline of the story is accurate although the film makes one egregious departure from the facts...
To continue reading
Request your trialCOPYRIGHT GALE, Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
