John Snare

John Snare (christened 31 July 1808 [2] born c.1811,[3] died 10 January 1884[4]) was a bookseller and publisher from Reading, England, whose life was dominated by the discovery at a country house auction in 1845 of a hitherto lost Diego Velázquez painting, which Snare identified as a young Charles Stuart.

It was supposed that the portrait was painted in 1623 during Charles' eight-month visit to Spain where the future monarch failed in his attempt to secure the hand of the Spanish Habsburg princess Maria Anna.

A protracted court case in Scotland with trustees from the estate of the Earl of Fife arose over the ownership of the work and this eventually brought Snare to financial ruin.

No images of the work survive, only Snare's written descriptions of the painting.

[5] In 2016, Snare's story was told by Observer art critic Laura Cumming in her book, The Vanishing Velázquez: A 19th Century Bookseller's Obsession with a Lost Masterpiece (Chatto & Windus).