Image Detectives: Severed head mystery at Chesterfield House

As regular readers of LMA Newsletter know by now, since March 2020 LMA staff, later joined by volunteers, have been working on the LCC Photograph Project, the aim of which is to geotag and improve the descriptions of nineteenth- and twentieth-century images of London in order to make them more informative and research friendly. Originally created by the London County Council for administrative purposes, Series 01 comprises about 96,000 photographs, many of which show places that no longer exist, having been demolished, destroyed in wartime air raids, or redeveloped. The images are fully digitised and available to view on the London Picture Archive (LPA) website.

Although the subjects of most images are street views and façades, some – especially those of Westminster locations – are views of sumptuous interiors and their furnishings and adornments. Image 129978, researched by one of our volunteers, Paul Bolding, is an example. In Paul’s own words:

"My latest box included many images of the interior of Chesterfield House, the long-demolished eighteenth-century mansion off Curzon Street in Mayfair. Image 129978 showed a double staircase with a huge painting on the wall and I thought it would be good to identify it. Since it included a severed head, I thought of the oft-depicted story of Judith and Holofernes but Googling quickly led me to Salome and the head of John the Baptist. However, the print copies from a work by Rubens under this title that I found on the internet had slight differences and, importantly, the image was reversed. I at first assumed the LPA negative must have been reversed but pressed on."

A blog post at referred to the reversed versions and the different titles and said the original was in the Museum of Fine Art in Boston, Massachusetts. It matched the one in the LPA picture; however, its subject was not John the Baptist but the Head of Cyrus Brought to Queen Tomyris, painted by Rubens about 1622-23.

The museum’s provenance information made it clear that the painting had been owned by Henry George Charles Lascelles, 6th Earl of Harewood, at the time the LPA picture was taken, and I quickly discovered that he had lived at Chesterfield House at that time. All that made sense; it was clearly the painting shown in the image, but I decided to inform the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston anyway to see if they had any observations. I received a reply from Cara Wolahan, their Art of Europe Department Coordinator, immediately:

"I was delighted to receive your note, and I can’t thank you enough for bringing this photograph to our attention! While it is known that the Rubens Head of Cyrus Brought to Queen Tomyris belonged to Henry Lascelles, the 6th Earl of Harewood, at that time, I don’t think we were previously aware that the painting was displayed in his London residence, Chesterfield House. This is a wonderful insight, which I’ve passed along to our provenance curator […]"

London Picture Archive is full of such surprises and discoveries awaiting to be brought to light. If you would like to lend your image research skills to our team of volunteers, we would love to hear from you at support@londonpicturearchive.org.uk