Whatever of his talents as a satirist and political pamphleteer, Jonathan Swift was not known as a master of the detective story. Yet with the unveiling of a new Swift portrait on loan to the National Library yesterday afternoon, the final chapter of a tale of hide-and-seek has drawn to a close.
The portrait of the young Swift is the centrepiece of an exhibition on the author of Gulliver's Travels, who was for many years the Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral. Until a month ago, the painting, which was discovered in a house in Scotland, had rarely been seen in public.
The owner of the work, Ms Virginia Cardwell-Moore, was at the National Library yesterday to meet the Minister for Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands, Ms de Valera, and the Swift biographer Bruce Arnold, who is the curator of the exhibition.
"As far as I know, it's always been in my family home. It's wonderful to have it authenticated as a portrait of Swift. Looking at the other portraits in the exhibition, the resemblance is very clear," said Ms Cardwell-Moore.
Mr Arnold said the portrait was originally bought by Bishop Percy of Dromore from Archdeacon Traill in the 18th century. Bishop Percy was an ancestor of Ms Cardwell-Moore and it has been in her family ever since.
"It appeared in the 1867 London Bicentennial," said Mr Arnold, "but it sort of disappeared after that. People knew of its existence but in the 1960s there was some controversy when it was said that it wasn't a portrait of Swift.
"This only arose because scholars at the time were unaware that the portrait was the work of Thomas Pooley. We know that Pooley was painting in the 1680s and was related to the Swifts."
The portrait was rediscovered by Mr Arnold during research for his biography, Swift: An Illustrated Life, which was also launched last night at the National Library. It was traced to the house of the late Kenneth Balfour, who was Ms Cardwell-Moore's uncle.
"I wrote to his executors who passed on the letter to Virginia. Then it was all a bit of a rush as we had to get a Pooley expert to examine it. She confirmed it was by the painter and it was given to us on loan for this exhibition," Mr Arnold said yesterday.
Other material in the exhibition includes rare editions of works by Swift such as A Modest Proposal and Tale of a Tub, and rarely seen portraits of the women in Swift's life, Hester Johnson, known as Stella, and Esther Van Hormrigh, known as Vanessa.
"It's marvellous that all these strands have been drawn together so people have the opportunity to appreciate what a wonderful character Swift was," Ms de Valera said.