David Carritt

Hugh David Graham Carritt (15 April 1927 – 3 August 1982) was a British art historian, dealer and critic, who was described by The New York Times as being "responsible for more sensational discoveries in the field of Old Master painting since World War II than any other man".

[3] He attended Rugby School before reading modern history at Christ Church, Oxford where he won an open scholarship, but graduated with a third-class degree in 1948.

[4][3] He joined the auction house Christie's in London, alongside William Mostyn-Owen, Noël Annesley, and Brian Sewell, becoming a director in 1964.

[6] At a "heavily attended auction" of works from Lord Rosebery's Mentmore Towers collection in 1977, Carritt realised that The Toilet of Venus, attributed to Carle van Loo, a minor painter, was a painting by Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Psyche Showing her Sisters her Gifts from Cupid.

[1][3][7][8] At the cottage of Joan, Lady Baird, he discovered an unrecorded painting by Rogier van der Weyden, which is now in London's National Gallery.