Volume 49, Number 20 · December 19, 2002
Don't Take Our Raphael!
By James Fenton
The first time I met Nicholas Penny, around ten years ago, the first thing I asked him was, 'Are you the man who discovered the Raphael?' 'I'm glad you remembered that,' said Penny. 'That was almost a year ago and people are already beginning to forget.' But it is the kind of story that sticks in the mind, and if, like me, you are bedeviled by fantasies of discovering overlooked masterpieces, why then it is the kind of story about which you want to learn more. Penny found the Raphael in a corridor in Alnwick Castle, the seat of the Duke of Northumberland. It was not, as it soon became in the retelling, a darkened corridor. Nor was it in the attic. It was a reasonably well-lit corridor near the private breakfast room on the piano nobile of the castle.
Feature, 3699 words
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