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A PAINTING of the ghosts of dead soldiers, bought by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in his quest to make contact with his dead son, has surfaced in Australia after 80 years.
The work, called The Rearguard, depicts the spirits of Australians killed in the Gallipoli campaign in the first world war.
The author of the Sherlock Holmes stories saw the painting, by Will Longstaff, in 1928 when he had become an ardent spiritualist. He was trying to explore all ways of communicating with the dead after being plunged into desperate grief by the death of his son Kingsley from wounds suffered in the battle of the Somme. He was also mourning his first wife, his brother, two nephews and two brothers-in-law.
Longstaff’s painting shows the spirits of men killed at Gallipoli, where he himself had served. He painted it after the war and visited western front battlefields on many occasions.
It is not known exactly how Conan Doyle came by the work, but he lived near Longstaff in the 1920s in Sussex. The archives of the local newspaper quote the author as saying: “It is one of the most remarkable paintings I have seen. The artist worked on it for 11 hours with the fury of inspiration. Genius has always been on the edge of psychic influence.”
Conan Doyle, who in some ways considered Longstaff a kindred spirit, studied medicine at Edinburgh University before turning full-time to writing. He kept the painting in his house until his death in 1930, after which its whereabouts was a mystery until it was offered to Bonhams, the auctioneer, last year by an Australian. The work will be sold in Sydney in June and could fetch about £24,000.
“Spiritualism was vital to him,” said Andrew Lycett, a biographer of Conan Doyle. “He became an apostle for spirituality and the paranormal. He took up, as did many others in the 1920s, with believing he could get in touch with the dead.
“What’s interesting is that in doing this he set aside his scientific training as a doctor. It does not surprise me that he bought this picture as a way to talk to his son.”
Conan Doyle established the Psychic Bookshop in Victoria, London, with a small museum attached, and his Sussex home was close to that of Rudyard Kipling, a fellow author and friend who had also lost a son in the war.
Conan Doyle claimed to have conversed with spirits such as those of Cecil Rhodes, Earl Haig and Joseph Conrad.
Richard Brooks Arts Editor |
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