Old Master For 2s

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28980, 22 August 1959, Page 13

Old Master For 2s

PERTH, August 21

Mr F. E. Manwaring, draper and newsagent, of Mandurah, 60 miles south of Perth, has discovered that an oil painting which he bought in a box of “odds and ends” for 2s in Worthing, Sussex, about 40 years ago is by John Constable and may be worth up to £ 1000. i

He said he left the picture behind in his sister’s garage when he came to Australia in 1926. When he went back to England for a trip five years ago he showed the picture to a Worthing dealer who 'said the signature was a forgery but offered £5 for it. “I got suspicious and brought the painting back to Australia with me,” Mr Manwaring said today. He said the assistant director of the Perth Art Gallery, Mr

Robert Rose, had told him it was a genuine Constable and a “very nice picture.”

The painting is dated 1789 when John Constable was 21 or 22. Measuring 18in by 12in it is a pastoral scene in Suffolk. The canvas is • being restored and framed.