Mystery of three hidden pictures
A reader is seeking help identifying the subject of a sketch she found hidden among her late mother’s possessions.
Lee Harris lost her mum Gladys Harris (nee Twort) in July. While she was moving her mother’s things the glass cracked on a print of a flower seller in front of St Martin’s In The Fields.
When she removed the picture from the frame to replace the glass, she found not one, but three other pictures behind it.
One of them was a Paris street scene, a print of a work by French artist Maurice Utrillo (1888 to 1955) entitled Le Passage Cottin.
The second was an engraving by James Scott of Hemsted of Thomas Law Hodges (1776 to 1857).
Thomas Hodges was a Liberal MP for Kent from 1830 until 1832, when the seat was sub-divided under the Great Reform Act of 1832. He then became MP for West Kent until 1841, returning to represent West Kent from 1847 to 1852. He lived at Hemsted Place in Cranbrook.
A note beneath the engraving said it had been taken from a painting of Hodges by Sir George Hayter (1792 to 1871) and commissioned by a constituent who presented it to Hodges as a mark of the deep esteem in which he was held.
The third picture is the real mystery. It is a black and white sketch of some ruins, that look like a church or abbey. One of the figures in it appears to be wearing a mortar board. It is signed “F.Carpenter, Nov 1897”. There were several American painters called F.Carpenter, but it is not in their style.
Miss Harris said: “I remember the picture of St Martin’s hanging on the stairwell wall from my childhood. It was there for years and years, but I never realised there were other pictures behind it.
“I’ve really no idea why my mother had these pictures, or indeed if she even knew they were there. Perhaps they were already hidden behind the painting of St Martin’s when she bought it. Of course now it is too late to ask her.”
Mrs Harris lived in Tovil and Detling, until a short time before her death, when she moved to be with her daughter in Scotland. Lee Harris would love to know the place that is the subject of the sketch and whether it was in Maidstone.
If anyone has any ideas, call Alan Smith on 01622 695666 or email ajsmith@thekmgroup,co. uk.