Hugh David Graham Carritt 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".
10 Facts About David Carritt
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Hugh David Graham Carritt was born on 15 April 1927, the only son of the musician and lecturer Reginald Graham Carritt and his wife Christian Norah Begg, of 2 Royal Avenue, Chelsea, London.
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David Carritt had an older sister and a twin sister.
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David Carritt 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.
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In 1952, at the age of 25, David Carritt discovered a painting by Caravaggio in the remote home of a British Navy retired surgeon captain.
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David Carritt joined the auction house Christie's in London, alongside William Mostyn-Owen, Noel Annesley, and Brian Sewell, becoming a director in 1964.
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At a "heavily attended auction" of works from Lord Rosebery's Mentmore Towers collection in 1977, David Carritt realised that The Toilet of Venus, attributed to Carle van Loo, a minor painter, was a painting by Jean-Honore Fragonard, Psyche Showing her Sisters her Gifts from Cupid.
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David Carritt discovered an allegorical painting by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo on the ceiling of the dining room of the Egyptian embassy in London.
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David Carritt founded David Carritt Limited, which is known as Artemis Fine Arts.
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David Carritt died of cancer on 3 August 1982 in his London flat at 120 Mount Street, aged 55.