Spinster Leaves £5m Art

When staff at the Courtauld Institute of Art received a collection of more than 50 paintings bequeathed to them by a benefactor they were overwhelmed by its quality, the Daily Mail reports. The 51 canvases have been valued at £5million and include watercolours by Turner and Constable. Yet nobody at the Somerset House gallery had heard of their owner, Dorothy Scharf. Now the true story of the life - and tragic death - of Miss Scharf can be told for the first time. Although Miss Scharf was born into a privileged family who allowed her to indulge her passion for art, her relatives described her as an introverted woman who killed herself hours after her beloved mother died. Almost all her family perished in concentration camps, including Auschwitz. She began by collecting Old Master drawings but at a fairly early age switched to watercolours and especially Turner, with whom she was completely besotted. She had 13 Turners and it is not just the Courtauld Institute which is benefiting from her bequests - she also left paintings to the National Library and University in New South Wales as well as a museum in Israel. Miss Scharf's private collection has been described as one of the most significant to be donated to the nation. It includes eight Turners and works by Gainsborough, Cozens and Constable from the period 1750 to 1850, considered a golden age for British watercolour painting. (For full source and article click the Headline). Irish Art