Duke vows to hunt down Blenheim’s lost trove of masterpieces

IT IS the ultimate treasure hunt, piecing together hundreds of years of history, millions of pounds and some of the finest artworks sold by one of Britain’s most famous families. Certainly, no one could accuse the Duke of Marlborough of being afraid of a challenge.

The Duke has embarked on an ambitious project to track down and retrieve the hundreds of paintings, sculptures and books sold from Blenheim Palace by his ancestors over the years.

During the 10-year project archivists will trawl through records to itemise what needs to be found, before contacting galleries, auction houses and private collectors to piece together where they are today.

While it may prove impossible to buy them back, it is hoped Blenheim will eventually be able to borrow the works to exhibit.

In particular, the Duke is keen to locate items lost in an infamous 1886 sale, when works by Titian, Van Dyck, Rembrandt, Rubens, Gainsborough, Reynolds, Caravaggio, Raphael and Holbein were sent to Christie’s. His project is part of a £40million restoration programme for the palace.

The Duke, who inherited the estate in 2014, said: “If I’ve got any aim during my custodianship, it is to try and buy back as much as I can what was sold in the 1880s sale. Because that’s what I feel my purpose is … I would like to get it back to how Blenheim was in the first Duke’s time, or first Duchess’s time.”

Explaining that death duties had forced the sale of the Blenheim collection, he added: “It did have best art collection in the western world.”

Alexa Frost, an archivist, is heading the project. “It’s colossal,” she said. “We are looking to trace the provenance of the artefacts, paintings and books, to find out what the palace has had over the years and where it might have gone.”

The Duke became custodian of Blenheim at the age of 58, after a colourful past which led him to be described as a “black sheep” of the family and led to a 1994 court battle with his father over inheritance.

With more than 20 convictions going back 30 years for drug offences, burglary, criminal damage, and driving offences, Jamie Blandford – as he was then – was given overall charge of the estate, with trustees retaining a power of veto.

The birthplace of Winston Churchill has had a colourful history and in common with many other estates has been subject to death duties, particularly in the late 1800s, and a constant need for repair.

Among its more notable inhabitants was the fifth Duke, who succeeded in 1817 and was known for his extravagance, undertaking extensive renovations until, as one historian puts it, “his wallow in luxurious forgetfulness was brusquely disturbed by the arrival of bailiffs at Blenheim”.

The library was sold at a significant loss before the Duke retired to live in a corner of the palace.

The seventh Duke sold the Marlborough Gems in 1875 for £10,000, and in 1881, 18,000 volumes from the Sunderland Library at the palace made nearly £60,000.

By the time the eighth Duke inherited, he had resolved to install electricity in the house, modernise the farms, build orchid houses, add a private telephone system and convert some bedrooms into laboratories to conduct his own experiments.

To fund it, hundreds of paintings from the house were sold off in a sixday auction. Raphael’s Ansidei Ma- donna fetched £70,000, and Van Dyck’s Charles I £17,500.

In a study of Blenheim Palace, written in 1985, Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd, a genealogist and former obituaries editor of The Daily Telegraph notes: “Nobody was angrier at this appalling philistinism than the Duke’s brother, Lord Randolph Churchill, but his protests were to no avail.”

A rare glimpse of one work lost by the estate was offered at Christie’s last year.

Rubens’s Lot and his Daughters was given to the first Duke by Holy Roman Emperor Joseph I in 1706 and sold in 1886 to Baron Maurice Hirsch de Gereuth.