The Daily Telegraph 27 March 1998

ONE of the world's greatest "lost pictures" - a 16th-century painting of Christ with an extraordinary history - has been discovered in a bank vault 130 years after it was apparently stolen by Queen Victoria's librarian.

The Kwer'ata Re'esu (The Striking of the Head) is a European painting but was for three centuries the most important icon of the Ethiopian Imperial dynasty. It was looted by a British expeditionary force sent to punish Ethiopia in 1868 and vanished.

The artist is unknown and the date uncertain but the significance of the 10in by 12in work on an oak panel to the Orthodox Christians of Ethiopia was immense. Its loss has been compared to Britain losing the Crown Jewels but until now, although there have been fleeting glimpses of the picture, attempts to crack one of the great art mysteries of the century have failed.

Next month, however, the art historian Martin Bailey will reveal in The Art Newspaper that he has found it in a Portuguese bank vault. Our photograph, taken by him a few weeks ago, is only the second known picture of the work. The other was taken in 1905, in black and white. Mr Bailey found the painting wrapped in a copy of the London Evening News dated 20 April, 1950.

He said yesterday that he was "trembling with excitement" when he was shown it and he described its condition as "remarkable considering its many vicissitudes". It is likely that the discovery will revive attempts by Ethiopia to reclaim the painting and Mr Bailey said he was allowed to see it only on condition that he did not reveal the owner's identity.

The Kwer'ata Re'esu shows Christ after his trial before he was led away to be crucified. From the 1905 photograph, art historians have dated the work to around 1520 but are divided over whether it was by a Flemish or Portuguese artist.

How a European Catholic painting came to occupy such an important position in a Christian Orthodox African dynasty is a mystery. It is presumed that it was taken to the country by Portuguese emissaries or Jesuits in the 16th century. It soon achieved sacred status and was carried into battle as a talisman. Oaths of allegiance to the Emperors were sworn in its presence.

In 1744 it was captured in a battle with Sudanese Muslims and was later returned on payment of a ransom. James Bruce, a British visitor to Ethiopia in 1768-73 recorded that the "quarat rasou" and other holy relics had been "only a little profaned by the bloody hands of the Moors", and that "all Gondar was drunk with joy" on their return. Many copies were made of it in manuscripts and for altarpieces. In 1700, a special tent was allocated to protect it in the emperor's camp. When a fire swept through the camp, according to legend, the flames died down when they reached the tent.

In the 1862 Emperor Theodorus grew angry when Queen Victoria stalled plans for an exchange of embassies. The Emperor took the British consul and other Europeans prisoner. When negotiations for their release broke down, a British military expedition in 1868 was despatched under General Napier. Accompanying it was Richard Holmes, soon to become the Royal Librarian and later to be knighted, but then the British Museum's Assistant Keeper of Manuscripts. He had a commission to secure antiquities for the museum.

Theodorus's troops were no match for British weaponry and he made his last stand at the fortress of Magdala. Lord Napier's men stormed it and before he could be seized, the Emperor shot himself through the mouth with a pistol inscribed as a gift from Queen Victoria.

After five years of detective work Mr Bailey now believes that he has pieced together the rest of the story. He is convinced that Holmes, who was among the first to reach the Emperor's quarters, stole the Kwer'ata Re'esu for himself instead of procuring it for the museum. Other goods looted from Magdala were auctioned a week after the British seized Magdala and Holmes bought many for the museum. Mr Bailey believes it possible that Holmes even kept the painting in a private apartment at Windsor under Queen Victoria's nose.

In August 1872, Yohannes IV, Theodorus's successor, petitioned Queen Victoria for its return. In November of that year the Foreign Office contacted the museum for information. Yohannes had also requested the return of an ancient book of Ethiopian history, also procured by Holmes. It was agreed to return this but no light was shed on the Kwer'ata Re'esu.

The painting remained a secret until 1905, a year before Holmes's retirement as Royal Librarian, when the Burlington magazine carried a short anonymous article, accompanied by a black and white photograph, on "A Flemish picture from Abyssinia". Mr Bailey believes it was written by Holmes or by his nephew, co-editor of the magazine.

Holmes died in 1911 and, six years later, the painting appeared at Christie's. The seller was anonymous and there was little description and no photograph in the catalogue. The picture was simply described as "Bruges School". Mr Bailey has now identified the seller as Evelyn, Lady Holmes, Sir Richard's widow, and the anonymous buyer as a Martin Reid of Wimbledon, who paid £420.

The painting did not surface again until 1950 when it appeared in a Christie's catalogue as A Man of Sorrows by A Ysenbrandt. There was no photograph and no mention of the only mention of its history was a line in small print saying "King Theodore of Abyssinia 1868/Sir Richard Holmes KCVO".

The painting did not sell at auction and Mr Bailey, with the help of Ethiopian specialists has discovered that it was sold privately to a London dealer for £131. He re-sold it for £300 to the Portuguese art historian, Luis Reis Santos, who knew its value because he had written an article on it in 1941. In 1961, Sir Denis Wright, British ambassador to Addis Ababa, inquired of the Portuguese whether the picture could be returned. His approaches came to nothing.

Realising where the painting was, Mr Bailey began to contact Portuguese museum curators. Many had never heard of it but one put him in contact with a relative of the present owner. Mr Bailey contacted the relative and flew to Portugal a few weeks ago. "It was brought to me from a bank vault. It was a very emotional moment when I lifted it up," he said yesterday.

On the back he discovered the key to the mystery - an inscription written in ink on silk backing which said: "R R Holmes/FSA/Magdala 13 April 1868/taken from the palace of Theodorus." This proved, said Mr Bailey, that Holmes had stolen the painting on the day Magdala was stormed, not bought officially at the auction of the spoils. Mr Bailey said it was impossible to put a price on it, adding that he hoped his discovery would mean that art historians might now be able to settle where, when and by whom it was painted.

In next month's The Art Newspaper, he writes: "The Ethiopians will find it difficult to put up a strong legal argument for ownership, but on historical grounds, Ethiopia could hardly have a more powerful case for trying to re-acquire the picture."

A spokesman for the Ethiopian embassy in London said last night that he had never heard of the painting. "We do not have an inventory of what was taken by the British."