In 1961, a portrait by the artist vanished from the UK's National Gallery. As The Duke, a film about the theft, is released, Nicholas Barber tells the story of an incredible art heist.
An hour and a half into the first James Bond film, 007 is strolling through the swanky secret headquarters of the eponymous villain, Dr No, when he pauses to admire a painting on a gilded easel. The moment passes so quickly that today's viewers barely notice it, but to cinema-goers in 1962, this would have been one of the film's sharpest jokes. The painting, a portrait of the Duke of Wellington completed by Francisco Goya in 1814, had been stolen from the National Gallery in London in 1961. Nobody knew who had taken it or where it was, so the idea that it might have fallen into the robotic hands of a megalomaniacal SPECTRE agent seemed as plausible as any other.
Warning: this article contains plot spoilers for The Duke
-------------------------------- We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love… and then we return home. - Australian Aboriginal proverb
Bazootiehead-in-training
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