Getting his teeth into Victoriana
Colin Gleadell marvels at a Pre-Raphaelite collection owned by a dentist who’s learnt how to play the market
An exhibition of more than 120 drawings by Victorian artists associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood – John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt and Dante Gabriel Rossetti – has just opened at Leighton House in Kensington. Sixty artists, from the Brotherhood’s extended circle to their teachers and disciples, have been brought together to reveal a dazzling mosaic of interconnectivity in avant-garde Victorian culture. What is most remarkable is that nearly all have been acquired over the past 35 years through auctions, dealers and even eBay, by one man: the Canadian dental surgeon and self-taught art historian, Dr Dennis Lanigan.
It all began 1976, when Lanigan spent a month in London at the end of his dental-school studies and spotted a poster on the Underground for a Burne-Jones exhibition. He was entranced by what he saw, and resolved to collect Pre-Raphaelite art. As finished oil paintings would be out of his price range, Lanigan decided to concentrate on drawings. Not only were they cheaper, but they provided fascinating insights into an artist’s preoccupations and working methods.
To do this, he embarked on a lengthy learning process, building up an extensive library and making friends with knowledgeable dealers. In 1983, one of these, Daniel Perrin, helped him buy a chalk study by Rossetti for a painting in the Walker Art Gallery’s collection. Lanigan had admired the drawing in Perrin’s Toronto gallery, where it was priced at $35,000, but couldn’t afford it. However, following some gallery problems, the drawing was sent to Sotheby’s for sale. Lanigan persuaded Perrin to withdraw it from auction and sell it to him for £6,500. “It would be worth 10 times that now,” he ventures.
Lanigan had to wait longer for a preliminary drawing for the painting
The Eve of St Agnes, by Holman Hunt. It sold in 1985 for a then record £17,600, but when it came back to market in 1997, Lanigan bought it for £7,000. “The market is always going up and down, depending who is buying and selling,” says Lanigan, who learnt early on how to play that market.
He sought out the specialist dealers Jeremy Maas and his son Rupert – among the acquisitions from them are drawings by Daniel Maclise and William Mulready. Their connection with the Pre-Raphaelites? “They were teachers who the Pre-Raphaelites studied under,” explains Rupert Maas. “Lanigan is extremely meticulous, and keeps an eye out for cracks in the story that he can fill in.”
He also kept an eye on expenditure. Nothing in the exhibition cost him more than the £17,625 he spent at Christie’s in 2000 for a rediscovered watercolour by the little-known Robert Bateman, an admirer of Burne-Jones. The least expensive was an ink drawing which Lanigan bought on eBay for £68.
Currently, Lanigan has nearly 500 works in his collection and he’s still filling in the cracks.
Pre-Raphaelites on Paper is at Leighton House, London W14 (020 7602 3316) until May 29. For a longer version of the Art Sales features, with more illustrations, go to telegraph.co.uk/luxury/art