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Estate appeals for missing 19th Century paintings

Holly NicholsBedfordshire, Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire
News imagePrivate Collection A classical white marble statue stands in the foreground of a formal garden, with neatly trimmed trees lining a path. Behind it, a large historic manor house with many windows stretches across the background under a partly cloudy sky.Private Collection
The paintings depict the children of the 6th Earl and Countess Cowper, who lived at Wrest Park in the 19th century

A charity that owns a historic manor house has launched an appeal to locate three missing family portraits dating from the 19th Century.

The paintings, which are from Wrest Park in Silsoe, Bedfordshire, form part of a set of five painted in 1862 by the Victorian artist, Frederic Leighton.

According to English Heritage, the five paintings, three of which are now untraced, depict the children of the 6th Earl and Countess Cowper, who lived at Wrest Park in the late 1800s.

English Heritage curator Peter Moore said the paintings were "fragments of Wrest Park's lost story" and represented "a group of brothers and sisters who were the last to know it as their childhood home".

News imagePrivate Collection Two painted head-and-shoulders portraits shown side by side: on the left, a woman with smooth features and dark hair pulled back, facing forward; on the right, a man with short dark hair and a full beard, turned slightly to one side against a darker background.Private Collection
The two returned paintings depict Florence and Henry Cowper, children of the 6th Earl and Countess Cowper

English Heritage has appealed for information about the missing portraits from Leighton's original series, one of which is known to have been sold at auction 25 years ago.

They depict the 7th Earl Cowper - Francis Thomas de Grey Cowper, Lady Adine Eliza Anne Cowper - and Lady Amabel Frederica Henrietta Cowper.

The other two family portraits in the set have already been returned to Wrest Park, on loan from a private collection, after more than 100 years.

They depict Hon Henry Frederick Cowper and Lady Florence Amabel Cowper.

The newly returned paintings have been loaned to English Heritage by descendants of Nan Cooper (née Herbert), who was the daughter of Lady Florence.

Cooper transformed the manor house into a hospital during World War One, and became its patron in 1915, before selling it the following year - bringing an end to her family's long association with Wrest.

News imagePrivate Collection An old, black and white photo of an ornate, vintage sitting room filled with patterned armchairs and small tables, decorated with mirrors, framed portraits, and detailed wall designs, with a large window letting in light.Private Collection
All five portraits in the collection were once displayed in the Countess's Sitting Room

Moore said the Leighton portraits "speak to a moment of family intimacy that was later overshadowed by war, loss and dispersal".

He added: "Within a generation, Wrest Park would become a wartime hospital, and that world would be gone.

"To have even two of the five reunited here is extraordinary."

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