Wrest Park on the hunt for lost portraits - as two return after more than 100 years

The family portraits, which are on loan from a private collection, were painted in 1862 by celebrated Victorian artist Frederic Leighton.

They depict Florence and Henry Cowper, children of the 6th Earl and Countess Cowper, and are part of a a set of five portraits of the Cowper siblings – three of which are now untraced.

English Heritage believes the lost paintings may still be hanging in private homes, and would like to see them reunited in Silsoe.

English Heritage curator, Peter Moore, said: “These paintings are far more than decorative objects – they are fragments of Wrest Park’s lost story, representing a group of brothers and sisters who were the last to know it as their childhood home.

"They also demonstrate Leighton’s remarkable ability to convey character and emotion, giving a strong sense of the individual – a hallmark of his portraiture that makes these works so captivating. Together, they speak to a moment of family intimacy that was later overshadowed by war, loss and dispersal. Within a generation, Wrest Park would become a wartime hospital, and that world would be gone. To have even two of the five reunited here is extraordinary.”

The Leighton portraits are now on display in the house’s ante library, allowing visitors to view them up close for the first time in decades.

Later this year, they will be returned to the Countess’s Sitting Room, where they originally hung and were photographed in the 19th century.

The newly returned paintings have been generously loaned by descendants of Nan Cooper (née Herbert), a formidable figure in Wrest Park’s history and the daughter of Florence, depicted by Leighton as a young girl.

During the First World War, Nan transformed the house into a hospital, becoming its matron in 1915 after medical training in London. Under her leadership, a team of 20 nurses cared for around 1,600 soldiers, and Wrest Park became one of the best-run country house hospitals in Britain.

A devastating fire in 1916 forced the hospital’s closure, despite the safe evacuation of all patients. Just weeks later, Nan’s brother, Auberon Herbert, was killed in action. Nan inherited the estate but sold it the following year.

The missing portraits are:

Francis Thomas de Grey Cowper, 7th Earl Cowper

Lady Adine Eliza Anne Cowper

Lady Amabel Frederica Henrietta Cowper