In the frame Respected art expert blamed for 1951 theft of Van Dyck

In 1951, a leading British art expert visited Boughton House, a stately home in Northamptonshire.

- Dalya Alberge

The owner, the eighth Duke of Buccleuch, was ill, and so the expert viewed its paintings by old masters alone.

Six years later, the Duke's wife, the Duchess of Buccleuch, popped into a museum in the US, where she was struck by a vivid portrait of a German prince by Anthony van Dyck. It looked just like the one she and her husband had at home. She would later discover that it was the exact same painting.

Now, 35 years after the expert's death, investigative work by Dr Meredith Hale, a senior lecturer in art history at the University of Exeter, has exposed him as the likely thief.

LGG Ramsey edited a leading art journal, the Connoisseur, and was the picture of respectability. But Hale has uncovered evidence that he was a "gentleman thief" who, on visiting Boughton House, stole The Portrait of Wolfgang Wilhelm of Pfalz-Neuburg.

In a paper to be published this month by the British Art Journal, Hale writes of a "remarkable theft".

The small portrait is one of 37 oil sketches by Van Dyck and his studio in the 1600s as preparatory works for his Iconography print series. The unique collection of grisailles - monochrome paintings - was bought in 1682 by Ralph, Earl of Montagu. It then remained with the earl's descendants, the Dukes of Buccleuch and Queensberry.