Earl Spencer, a £500,000 painting dug up on his estate ... and questions the taxman might ask

18.08.07

How did an unknown art treasure by Britain's most illustrious painter of society miniatures come to be buried - and then miraculously discovered - in the grounds of Earl Spencer's family estate?

The painting is a depiction of a Civil War Parliamentarian by the 17th Century artist Samuel Cooper.

And, judging by recent auction results, it could well be worth around £500,000.

Earlier this month, two gamekeepers at the Earl's magnificent Althorp estate in Northamptonshire surprised both their employer and the art world when they chanced upon the work during a metal-detecting expedition.

Away from home: Earl Spencer with his American partner Coleen Sullivan

Although the estate - the family home of Diana, Princess of Wales - was reluctant to supply precise details of the find, workers said the picture was discovered buried beneath 10in of soil.

The discovery represents a welcome windfall for Earl Spencer, who is believed to be claiming ownership of the 4in-high picture.

But it has also given rise to avid speculation over why the artwork was hidden in the first place - and tax authorities made clear that such finds were typically subject to investigation.

Finder keeper: The miniature painting by Samuel Cooper was discovered by gamekeeper Adey Greeno, above, while he was using a metal detector at Althorp

The estate workers who discovered the painting held out the tantalising prospect that there could be more finds to come.

The Earl's gamekeepers, Adey Greeno and Bob Faulkner, told how they were testing a new detector in the grounds and were disappointed to have unearthed just a few dirty old nails - until the machine beeped as they came across the tiny painting.

Mr Greeno said: "I dug down about 10in, and suddenly I saw this little face looking up at me. We will have to wait until the boss comes back to see if there are any more lying around."

The miniature portrait of John Hampden, a cousin of Oliver Cromwell and a leading Parliamentarian in the English Civil War, is being valued by Sotheby's auctioneers.

Treasure hunt: The Earl's gamekeepers Adey Greeno and Bob Faulkner with their metal detector

Earlier this year, a similar work by the artist fetched £535,200 at auction, and experts say the latest find is comparable in value.

Robin Simon, editor of the British Art Journal, said the fact that Sotheby's said the unwrapped painting was in a poor but still recognisable condition suggests that it could not have been buried for much longer than two decades.

"At about 10in down it would be very susceptible to damage from relative humidity and condensation, so I do not think it can have been buried for more than about 20 years," he said.

At that time, Charles Spencer's father, the 8th Earl, was married to his second wife, Raine, who was deeply unpopular with her stepchildren.

"Acid Raine", as they called her, was accused of "looting" Althorp in the period between their wedding in 1976 and the 8th Earl's death in 1992 by selling off treasures, including many works of art, to pay for the upkeep of the estate.

One report claimed that, after the 8th Earl's death, Diana and her brother put Raine's clothes into black rubbish bags, kicked them down the stairs, refusing to let her remove any more items from the house without providing proof of purchase.

Mr Simon said he was "puzzled" by the discovery of what he described as "a buried masterpiece by the greatest miniature painter of them all".

"There are a number of coincidences," he said.

"This, after all, is the very summer in which a miniature by Samuel Cooper broke all records, selling for £535,200 at Sotheby's. That was a portrait of Oliver Cromwell, who was a cousin of John Hampden, the subject of this painting.

John Hampden started the Civil War that led to the execution of King Charles I, and so he is at least as important historically as his cousin, which can only enhance the value of the miniature.

"The other odd thing is that Hampden was fatally wounded in 1643 in the Battle of Chalgrove against Prince Rupert. And Charles Spencer has just written a biography of Prince Rupert."

Hampden, who was born in 1594 into a wealthy and ancient Buckinghamshire family, helped to spark the English Civil War in 1642 by defying Charles I over his levying of tax without Parliament's approval.

Cooper, who lived between 1609 and 1672, was born in London and trained by his uncle, John Hoskins, also a painter of miniatures. Married with one daughter, Cooper was described in Samuel Pepys's diaries as an accomplished musician and linguist.

Mr Simon said the mystery deepened given the fact that no Cooper miniature of John Hampden had ever been recorded. A catalogue published in 1974, which listed all his known works, made no mention of it.

"Raine made it her business to sell numerous works of art from the family collection while she lived at Althorp," said Mr Simon.

"She would take paintings to the dealer Colnaghi's in London. It was one of the major reasons for her being so disliked by the present Earl and his siblings, because they saw their inheritance diminished before their eyes."

In his book about Althorp, published in 1998, Earl Spencer accused Raine of "selling off 100 years of family history" during a period dubbed the "Raine of terror".

After she moved in, he said, the children were sent to "rooms in the attics that had been thought adequate for junior housemaids in previous generations".

He described how dozens of the family's art treasures were carted off in laundry baskets to be sold for a fraction of their true worth.

Raine took over the running of the house, which has been in the hands of the Spencer family since the early 16th Century, in 1978 when her husband suffered a stroke. It was then that the great clear-out began.

"The Eighties saw the exodus of the bulk of the religious paintings from Althorp. The saddest loss was of individual portraits of four of the Apostles by Van Dyck," Charles wrote, accusing her of selling "dozens of other works, collected by 500 years of my family and now dispersed around the world, having sometimes been sent to London art dealers in laundry baskets from the back door to guarantee the anonymity of the sale.

"Since my family was basically being taken to the cleaners by the art world, the laundry basket was perhaps the most appropriate mode of transport."

The mystery over the ownership of the painting means the Earl is vulnerable to rival claims of entitlement.

And if it emerged that the painting had been buried in the Eighties to hide it from Raine, it could be subject to inheritance tax which would have been payable on the death of the 8th Earl.

If the painting is valued at £500,000, that would present the Earl with a tax bill of £200,000.

Mike Warburton, a tax expert at accountants Grant Thornton, said: "It would depend on the arrangements the Earl made in his will, but you don't get out of paying inheritance tax just because something is buried in the garden."

The Earl has escaped the complications which would have arisen if the find had been declared "treasure trove", which would require him to report it to a coroner to determine its fate.

A find is categorised as "treasure" if it is coins, or any object other than a coin, containing at least ten per cent of gold or silver and is at least 300 years old, so it would apply to the Earl only if the painting's frame contains that proportion of precious metal.

According to the Treasure Act 1996, paintings are not classed as treasure and do not belong to the Crown.

They belong to the person on whose land they are found, unless they have been stolen from somebody else, who would then have a claim.

Inspectors for HM Revenue and Customs indicated last night that the find could be subject to investigation.

Wealthy property owners have been known to hide valuables to protect them from divorce settlements - not an uncommon event in the turbulent Spencer family history - or inheritance tax.

A spokeswoman for Revenue and Customs said: "I can't comment on specific cases, but we would certainly look at the circumstances of the case. People hide all sorts of things."

Mr Greeno and Mr Faulkner refused to talk further about their find. But a spokeswoman for Earl Spencer, who is out of the country, said: "It is a mystery. At the moment we have no idea how the painting got there or why it was buried.

"Until it has been looked into in more depth, there's no way of knowing.

"It is suspected that the frame could be Victorian and, if this is the case, then the painting could have been buried for up to 200 years.

"It is a strange coincidence that Lord Spencer has just written a book about Prince Rupert and that this gentleman was killed while pursuing the Prince during the Civil War.

"The painting seems to be in good condition considering that it has been buried for some time."

However, a spokeswoman for Sotheby's described the painting as being in "quite poor condition" and said the process of valuing and tracing it would take some time.

She declined to speculate about its provenance.