The London Pictorial News: February 28th 1880
DEATH OF PROMINENT PHILANTHROPIST
London mourns the loss of one of its most distinguished and generous benefactors.
Sir Richard Verdin’s interest in the work of young artists and his energetic nurture of emerging talent will be a supreme loss to the artistic firmament. This correspondent understands that Sir Richard’s body was discovered by a manservant at his London home, late on Friday last. A single gunshot wound to the head will have killed him instantly.
Sir Richard’s death is presumed accidental. Servants have confirmed that the gun found at the scene belonged to the prominent businessman and philanthropist. Initial investigations suggest he sustained the fatal wound while cleaning the piece.
In a cruel twist of fortune it has recently come to light that Sir Richard Verdin’s ward and godson, Edward Chaston, soon to be admitted to the Royal College of Surgeons, also died in an horrific accident not two weeks ago. Interested parties have confirmed that Sir Richard was left ‘devastated’ by this loss, describing Edward Chaston as ‘the son he never had’.
Dr Chaston, for let us award him that title in death if not in life, can be revealed, for the first time by this newspaper, as the reclusive artist whose extraordinary work, The Cinnabar Girls, has set London aflame.
It is with regret that your correspondent notes that The Cinnabar Girls is, apparently, destined to be the last and only work from the hand of the ‘unknown genius’.