An Art Newspaper investigation uncovers new details on the infamous seizure in 1868 by Richard Holmes of a 500-year-old painting of Christ, the Kwer’ata Re’esu, which never reached the London institution
Among the greatest Ethiopian cultural losses suffered at the battle of Maqdala in 1868 was a remarkable 500-year-old icon of the suffering Christ. It was looted by a British Museum agent, Richard Holmes, who had been sent to bring back manuscripts and antiquities from Ethiopia. On his return he failed to hand over the masterpiece to the museum, instead secretly keeping the painting, so the museum had no direct involvement in handling it. The heir of Holmes subsequently sold the picture at Christie’s in 1917.
The Art Newspaper tracked down the painting, known as the Kwer’ata Re’esu, in 1998, when it was in a Portuguese bank vault (at that point we reproduced the picture in black and white). This was probably the only occasion when the icon has been seen by anyone in living memory outside the owner’s immediate circle.
We can now finally name the owner, who personally showed me the work: the Coimbra-based Isabel Reis Santos, heir of the Portuguese art historian Luiz Reis Santos. When I travelled to see the Kwer’ata Re’esu, it was boxed and still in the wooden crate in which it had been shipped from London. Kept in a bank vault, the painting was wrapped in a 20 April 1950 copy of the London Evening News. In 1998 The Art Newspaper did not identify the owner, but does so now since she has been named in the official Portuguese government gazette.
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