St Michael and All Angels Church in Watford is set for £10,000 windfall as oil painting by Bushey artist goes under the hammer

St Michael and All Angels Church, in Mildred Avenue,Watford, is selling the painting titled Love Divine at an auction at Bonhams in London on March 1.

The six feet by three feet picture was painted in 1910, and exhibited at the Royal Academy in London that year, by George Henry Grenville Manton, who lived and worked at Pen-y-Bryn, in Bushey Grove Road, Bushey.

Watford Museum own three paintings by Manton – portraits of Edward John Slinn, George Herber and William Tucker – but whether they will bid for his painting, Love Divine, and keep the picture in Hertfordshire, remains to be seen.

Love Divine was given to St Michael and All Angels Church in Watford in 1939. According to Father Geoffrey Calvert, of St Michael's, the painting was moved into storage around 50 years ago to allow the relocation of the war memorial.

Father Calvert said: "There is nowhere in the church where it can be displayed in a way which is secure and appropriate to a building which is primarily a place of worship. Local museums were approached but were not able to display it."

After consultation with Diocesan and national bodies the decision was made to put the painting up for auction and will appear in the Bonhams sale on March 1.

‘In their sale catalogue, auctioneers Bonhams say: “George Henry Grenville Manton specialised in portraits but also painted genre subjects with Pre-Raphaelitesque subjects such as Isabella and the Pot of Basil.

"He also painted large scale religious subjects,such as In The Year Of Our Lord and Love Divine.

“The imagery of the young Christ in a crucifix position echoes Holman Hunt’s Shadow Of Death painted more than a generation earlier.

"The depiction of the lilies, roses, laurel tree and doves shows a love of symbolism. If the subject and iconography are Pre-Raphaelite in their inspiration the composition and style are much more of its time.”

The auctioneers estimate the sale price of Love Divine at between £8,000 to £12,000. This money will help the work, worship and the upkeep of St Michael's, according to Father Calvert.

London-born George Henry Grenville Manton moved to Bushey sometime between 1891 and 1901.

On February 13,1879, he married Blanche Lucretia Cottle but the marriage ended quickly and dramatically that year when Blanche petitioned unsuccessfully for divorce on grounds of cruelty.

But Blanche did eventually divorce Manton – on grounds of adultery and cruelty - on August 12, 1887. Two years later in 1889 Manton married Alice Coles who was eight years younger than Manton.They had three children: Basil, Phyllis and Grenville.

In 1901 at their home in Bushey Grove Road the Mantons employed a seventeen year old Bushey-born servant, named Lilian Sutton.

Manton was 77 when he died in Bushey on May 13,1932. In his will he left £983 twelve shillings and ninepence or £983.64p in modern money.

His widow Alice was 82 when she died on March 16,1950.