John Snare (c.1808 - 1884)

RA Collection: People and Organisations

John Snare 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.